






.C8C6 










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CRANSTON: 



A HISTORICAL SKETCH 



BY J. EARL CLAUSON 




Published by order of the One Hundred. and Fiftieth 
Anniversary Committee. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

T. S. HAMMOND, 98 WEYBOSSET ST. 

1904 






Copyrighted, 190-1, by J. Earl Clauson 






INTRODUCTORY 



The writer has sought to give in the following pages some of 
the leading facts in the history of the territory embraced in the town 
of Cranston, Rhode Island, from the time of the first settlement 
therein, through a century and a half of corporate existence. Events 
having a bearing on the development of the town or throwing light on 
the circumstances surrounding its residents have been given 
precedence over personalities, and it is hoped from this sketch there 
may be gained a consecutive idea of the story of Cranston. Existing 
histories of Rhode Island and State and town records have been 
drawn on fredy for material. 



CRANSTON. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

16B8-1754. 

Among the companions of Roger Williams when, In 1636, driven from 
Seekonk by his Massachusetts persecutors, he found a refuge on the 
bank of the Mosshassuck river, was William Arnold, and he two years 
later joined William Harris, William Carpenter and Zechariah Rhodes 
In settling along the fertile meadow lands bordering the Pawtuxet 
river, where they formed the nucleus of the village now known as Paw- 
tuxet. These men were the earliest settlers in the territory later gath- 
ered under the name of Cranston. Before their advent the waters of 
the Pawtuxet river and lesser streams flowing into it had been vexed 
by no greater crafts than the light canoe of the Indians, who were the 
proprietors and shared with the wild animals of the forests and fields 
occupancy of the region. They were nomads, true children of nature, 
living in temporary lodges, which they moved from season to season, 
actuated now by the desire to dwell in rich hunting grounds, or again 
by the necessity of living near the fields where they carried on their 
rude agriculture, consisting mainly in raising crops of corn. The tribe 
of Soconoco, sachem of Pawtuxet, which shared with that of Pumham 
what is now included in Cranston and Kent County, were parts of the 
sirong Narragansett nation, whose chief sachems were Canonicus and 
his nephew, Miantinomi. The Narragansetts were of all the natives 
encountered by the white race in the colonization of New England the 
most peaceful, intelligent and inclined to the arts of civilization, al- 
though judged by Anglo-Saxon standards, they could not be considered 
ether than savages.. Hunting, trapping and fishing were the principal 
occupations of the men, while the squaws cultivated the fields and did 
the hard work. Game of all kinds abounded. Deer, which were plen- 
tiful, were driven together in expeditions in which many hunters took 
part' at the same time. Bears were caught in pitfalls, or slain with the 
bov/ and arrow, the latter weapon being tipped with flint, for metals 
were unknown to the Indian until the white man came. 

Ro°-er Williams, before his final exile from Massachusetts and Plym- 
outh colonies, had gained the confidence and affection of the Narragan- 
sett nation and its chiefs, so it proved a simple matter for him to buy 
from the chief the land he needed for a home. A memorandum, dated 



6 

March 24, 1637, records the sale made two years earlier by Canonicus 
and Miantinomi to Williams of the lands upon the Woonasquatucket 
and Mosshasuck rivers, confirming the sale and extending the territory 
on either side so as to include all the land between the Pawtucket and 
Pawtuxet rivers, with the grass and meadows upon the Pawtuxet. Again, 
the following year Miantinomi confirmed this purchase, and the terri- 
tory thus defined constituted the original town of Providence, which 
included Cranston and other towns later set off. Soon after the pur- 
chase "Williams executed a deed, giving an equal share with himself 
Ic twelve others, among whom whom were Arnold and William Harris. 

In 16C6 Williams executed another more formal deed, dating it Au- 
gust 8, 1638, to conform to the time of the original, and the proprietors 
of the land under this last deed divided the territory into two parts, 
one known as the "grand purchase of Providence," the other as the 
"Pawtuxet purchase." The outline of the latter was much like that of 
the town of Cranston. 

The credit of being the first to establish a permanent settlement in 
the Pawtuxet purchase is believed to be due to William Arnold, who, 
with his sons, Benedict and Thomas, took up their residence on the 
east side of the highway, later known as Eddy street. Arnold was the 
wealthiest member of the party which accompanied Williams 
in his dignified retirement from Massachusetts colony. Thomas 
Arnold, his son, eventually settled in Woonsocket, Benedict, 
the other son. became the first governor of Rhode Island under the 
charter. Arnold was not long alone in his occupancy of the land along 
the Pawtuxet, its meadows and fertile soil speedily attracting other 
settlers, and soon there was the semblance of a village within sound 
of the falls where the stream rushes precipitately to mingle with the 
salt waters of the bay. 

Life in the infant settlement was destined soon to become troubled, 
the cause being afforded by the conduct of Samuel Gorton and some 
companions. Gorton went to Boston from London in 1636. He was an 
independent spirit, with his own ideas on religious matters, and when 
after his removal from Boston to Plymouth colony it was found that his 
views did not chime with those of the Puritans, he was persecuted for 
his alleged "heresies," and his disinclination to respect the colonial 
court, until he was compelled to move again. He went to Aquidneck, 
where again he came into conflict with those in power. He was in- 
dicted and sentenced to be v/hipped and banished. In 1640 he went to 
Providence, where his opposition to magistrates constituted by the pop- 
ular will led the town proprietors to refuse him citizenship. He and his 
companions settled in 1642 in Pawtuxet, and their conduct there, com- 
bined with differences with the residents in the Providence Purchase, 
caused four of the leading men, William Arnold and his son, Benedict, 
and Robert Cole and William Carpenter, to offer themselves and their 
lands to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The offer, accepted by the Gen- 



eral Court of that colony, establishing a foreign power in the young and 
weak town of Providence, held until in 1658 the inhabitants of Paw- 
tuxet asked for and obtained a discharge of their fealty to Massachu- 
setts Gorton and his companions left Pawtuxet soon after the offer 
to Massachusetts was made, and settled at Shawomet, becoming the 
founders of the town of Warwick. 

The population of the new colony of Providence on the shores of 
Narragansett Bay increased rapidly, but it was not until 1647, more 
than two years and a half after the receipt of the charter from England, 
that committees were appointed by the four existing towns, Provi.leuce, 
Newport, Portsmouth and Warwick, to consider the question of organiz- 
ing a united government. Owing to the peculiar conditions existing at 
the Pawtuxet settlement, which was at the time under the rule of Mas- 
sachusetts, its people had nothing to do with the arrangements for "the 
incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay," the legal 
title of the union of settlements. It is easy to imagine that the Paw- 
tuxet pioneers, some of whom had shared with Williams the dangers 
and discomforts of his first entry into the land of religious freedom, re- 
gretted at this time, as by their petition for release from Massachusetts 
they showed they did later, the action which had cut them off from par- 
ticipation in the promising enterprise on which were embarked those 
who were territorially, if not politically, their comrades. The new col- 
ony also showed that it was disinclined to a continuance of foreign 
rule for at its first General Assembly in May, 1647, the people of Paw- 
tuxet were told to choose whether they should belong to Providence, 
Portsmouth or Newport, and a letter was sent to Massachusetts in re- 
lation to her claim of jurisdiction, a summons being dispatched at the 
same time to Soconoco, the sachem of Pawtuxet, and to the sachem of 
Warwick to attend upon the General Court. A warning from Massa- 
chusetts to Providence Plantations not to interfere with her subjects in 
Pawtuxet or Warwick led to long negotiations, in the course of which 
Pawtuxet, after having been annexed to Suffolk County, was trans- 
ferred to Plymouth Colony. For several years the debate was carried 
on. Providence Plantations levying taxes on the Pawtuxet men. whom 
she claimed for her own, and Massachusetts protesting, until in 165S 
tlie dispute was finally settled by the petition of William Arnold and 
William Carpenter, for themselves and their friends, that the General 
Court of Massachusetts give them a full discharge of their persons and 
estates The petition was granted on certain reasonable conditions. 

For nearly a century thereafter the story of the territory now called 
Cranston was one with that of the town of Providence. As newcomers 
joined those in Providence the line of settlement was extended, and 
houses sprang up in the wilderness along the Pawtuxet and Pocasset 
rivers In 1676, in the course of King Philip's war against the white 
invaders, the pioneers in this region lost their homes and were obliged 
to flee for their livee. It is said that the red men burned every house 



8 

between Providence and Stonington except a stone building in War- 
wick, altliough it is doubtful that their ravages were as complete as 
that. Every citizen in the colony was required to take up arms, and 
Captain Arthur Fenner was placed in command of a body of eight men 
to defend a garrison house on the banks of the Pocasset river near w^hat 
is now Thornton village. The devastation of the land to the west of 
the Bay marked the last visit of hostile Indians to that section. In the 
same year their power was broken and peace settled once more over 
the land. 

A dispute vitally concerning the section later incorporated as the 
town of Cranston arose out of the lack of explicitness of the deed of 
Canonicus and Miantinomi to Roger Williams. The last clause of the 
deed said: "We do freely give unto him all that land from those rivers 
(Mosshassuck and Woonasquatucket) reaching to Pawtuxet river." A 
memorandum added the following year confirming the deed said: "Up 
the streams of Pawtucket and Pawtuxet without limits we might have 
for our use of cattle." The question arose whether this land formed a 
part of the purchase or was merely a grant of a right of pasturage. 
William Harris, who occupied land along the Pawtuxet, claimed that 
the territory had been purchased. Williams, on the other hand, argued 
that the title still resided in the original Indian owners. In May, 1659, 
the legislature authorized the town of Providence to add 3000 acres to 
its territory by buying from the sachems. Three deeds passed as a 
result of this purchase. William Harris and his party held that these 
deeds were merely confirmations of the original purchase, but Williams 
maintained that they represented a new purchase. Which point of view 
was the correct one made a great deal of difference, for if the deeds 
were confirmations, the whole tract belonged to the original proprietors 
of Providence, owners of the "Pawtuxet purchase," while if they stood 
for a new purchase, the men who had been admitted late to member- 
ship in the town corporation had equal rights with the original settlers, 
and each man's interest was diminished accordingly. 

Such was the question which led to twenty years of dispute and liti- 
gation. Whatever the settlement of the title questions involved, the 
deeds were so vague that nobody could tell where "the grand purchase 
of Providence" ended and "the Pawtuxet purchase" began. The prop- 
osition by Roger Williams October 27, 1660, for a new purchase from 
the Indians and a separate settlement in the disputed territory was re- 
jected by Thomas Olney, William Harris and Arthur Fenner in behalf 
of the town. A committee of three each from Providence and Paw- 
tuxet was chosen to run the line between the two places, and seven 
years later made a report covering less ground than was claimed by 
the Pawtuxet men, having surveyed westward to a point afterwards 
known as the "seven mile line." In 16G3 William Harris went to Eng- 
land in search of justice from the king, but without definite results. 

Soon after the purchase of Warwick matters were complicated by 



9 

the introduction of questions of jurisdiction as between Providence and 
Warv/ick. Numerous suits for trespass were brought, with cross suits 
and writs of ejectment. William Harris was involved in most of this 
litisation, and was generally successful in getting verdicts. He spent 
half his lifetime in this vain fighting, making a number of visits to 
England to petition the king, and on the last of ttiese trips — on which he 
started in 1679— he met with adventures which hastened his death. The 
ship on which- he sailed was captured by Barbary pirates. Harris, with 
other prisoners, was taken to Algiers, and sold in public market as a 
slave. His bondage continued for more than a year, when he was ran- 
somed for twelve hundred dollars, Connecticut, whose accredited 
agent he was, in her claim against Rhode Island for the Narragansett 
country, becoming responsible for the entire amount, and contributing 
largely to the fund. This money was later refunded by the Harris 
family. Harris landed at Marseilles in the summer of 1681, after his 
restoration to freedom, traveled through France, and, broken down by 
the trials of Turkish slavery, died three days after reaching London. 

Harris's second trip to England as agent for the Pawtuxet proprietors 
was rr.ade in 1675, his prayer to the king being for a special commission 
to pass upon the disputes. The petition was referred to the Board of 
Trade, and an order was issued to the governors of the four New Eng- 
land colonies making them a comm.ission to hear the case. They met 
at Providence in 1677, and impanelled a jury of four men from Massa- 
chusetts, two from Plymouth, and three each from Rhode Island and 
Connecticut, and a month later this court met at Providence, where it 
tried five cases, three against private parties for trespass and two 
against the towns of Warwick and Providence to compel them to run 
boundary lines previously agreed upon, and to decide the title of lands 
on either side of these lines. The plaintiffs in all these cases were 
William Harris^ Thomas Field and Nathaniel Waterman. Harris was 
the attorney for Pawtuxet. Verdicts were rendered for the plaintiffs, 
or, in other words, for the Pawtuxet proprietors, in evey case. Warwick 
appealed to the crown from the adverse judgment. 

When in the following year the eight commissioners met at Provi- 
dence to assess the cost of the litigation, they found that nothing had 
been done about running the line between Providence and Pawtuxet, in 
compliance with the verdict, which ordered that it should be run by the 
defendants "equally between the Pawtuxet river and Woonasquatuket 
river till they meet a fork line from the head of Woonasquatucket river 
directly running to Pawtuxet river." The court ordered the jury to ap- 
pear in October to make more clear its verdict in this case. At that 
time the three jurors from Rhode Island refused to explain the verdict, 
but the remaining nine said the meaning was that the two lines re- 
ferred to were to intersect at right angles. As some of the commission- 
ers were absent and the others uncertain of their powers, the whole 
matter was referred to the king. Warwick protested against the verdict 



10 

in the second case, which ordered that town and certain individuals as 
tenants by force to restore the land, with one hundred pounds damage, 
to the plaintiffs. Harris appeared in England the third time to urge his 
claims, and the Royal Council ordered that the magistrates of Plymouth 
Colony should decide the question between Warwick and Pawtuxet 
and that Rhode Island should put Harris in possession of his lands un- 
der the other four verdicts within three months from the time of re- 
ceiving the order, or that Plymouth should see it done. When the 
marshal attempted to execute judgment in accordance with the ver- 
dicts, however, the plaintiffs themselves refused to receive possession 
unless the defendants should run the lines as the verdicts ordered. As 
the plaintiffs had failed to point out the lands, the marshal reported 
that he was unable to serve the executions. Harris's last and fatal trip 
to England followed this report. In the year after his death another 
attempt was made to settle the controversy between Providence and 
Pawtuxet by mutual agreement. The matter was placed in the hands 
of a committee, which was also empowered to settle the Warwick dis- 
pute. Both attempts failed. The questions remained open until 1G96, 
when the legislature took it in hand and made the Pawtuxet river the 
boundary between Providence and Warwick, thus giving Providence 
jurisdiction over the debated tract, which was on the north side of the 
stream in a bend of the river. The other controversy continued before 
the Royal Council as late as 1706 without practical results, and was 
finally settled by compromise in 1712, when the line v/as run and 
bounds set reducing still further the limits of the Pawtuxet purchase. 
Certain sketches of Cranston's history, among them the one con- 
tained in the history of Providence County edited by Bayles, state that 
there were a number of movements looking toward a division of the 
town of Providence and the erection of new township in the western 
portion before the one which was finally successful in 1754. If this i-s 
the case, there is nothing in the state or town records bearing thereon, 
although as mentioned above Williams proposed in October of 16G0 as 
a method of settling the territorial dispute which arose then a new pur- 
chase from the original Indian owners and a new settlement in the dis- 
trict in question, a plan which was rejected by the town of Providence. 
It was natural, however, that as the population of the western part of 
the town of Providence increased there should arise discussions of the 
disadvantages of living remote from the place where the public busi- 
ness was transacted. Freeholders' meetings were held quarterly in the 
town of Providence, always in the compact portion at the head of the 
bay, and court was also held there. It is said that had the people in 
the westerly part of the town been able to agree upon a name for their 
prcnosed township they would have pressed their petition for a division 
of the old town long before they did. Some, however, insisted that a 
new town be formed under the name of Mashapaug. others vranted to 
take in pari '.f "Warwick and call it all Pawtuxet Meshanticut and 



11 

Pocasset also had their supporters, and altogether the difficulty of S 
choice was serious enough to block action for nearly a century. In 1732 
the supporters of a division came near success, but the name proved too 
much and action was again delayed. 

The settlement of the territory eventually embraced in Cranston be- 
gan at Pawtuxet, and for several years additions to the section found 
their way there. Another line of settlement struck out toward the Po- 
casset river in the vicinity of the Plainfleld highway. Meadow land 
was the most powerful magnet to draw the pioneer of those days, and 
meadov/s were to be found only along the rivers. Water rights for saw 
and grist mills were also valuable to settlers. The interval between 
Pawtuxet and Thornton was occupied later. Jacob Clark settled at an 
early day a mile south of where the Cranston Print Works stand, a lit- 
tle west of the Pocasset river. A son of William Harris, Toleration Har- 
ris by name, took up land to the south of Clark's, built a sawmill on the 
river and in one of the Indian raids was killed in his mill by the red 
men. Nicholas Sheldon took a large tract in the north central part of 
the town, while the Knight family settled in the northwestern corner 
and John Herrod took up land in the neighborhood of the ore bed. The 
Randall, Sprague and Dyer families settled in and around Cranston vil- 
lage, and the Potter family, which gave to the country three famous 
PJpiscopal bishops, settled in the southwestern part of the tov/n. 



CHAPTER TWO. 

1754-1790. 

In 1754 an agreement was readied on the important question of 
tlie name to be given the proposed new township, and on June 11 
there was filed with the General Assembly, then sitting at Newport, a 
copy of a largely signed petition for a division of Providence. It set 
forth that the town of Providence was very large, there being about six 
hundred freeholders therein, and all quarter meetings were held in the 
coirpact portion of the town, which was almost the easterly side. 
Ivlany of the inhabitants of the western and southern portions, there- 
fore, had to travel some eight, some nine and some ten miles to act 
on the prudential affairs of the town, and at certain times of the year 
traveling was very diflacult. No mention was made in the petition of 
the name it was proposed to give the new town. Ninety-two signatures 
were affixed to this document, including as dwellers in the western part 
of Providence two of the town's four deputies, Jonathan Randall and 
John Burton, Jr. The signers were Ezekiel Warner, William Burton, 
Jonathan Randall, William Westeott, Benjamin Potter, Jr., Joseph 
Karris, William Harris, Joseph Carpenter, Eiisha Weaver, William Fen- 
''Uer, Jonathan King, John Davis, Benjamin Sarle, John King, Jeremiah 
Williams, Stephen Waterman, James Green, John Warner, Moses Burl- 
linggame, Jr., Matthew Manchester, Charles Higginbotham, Thomas 
•• Fenner, Jr., John Waterman, Caleb Potter, Daniel Burllinggame, John 
Randall. Content Potter, John Gorton, Israel Gorton, Jr., John Burlling- 
game, Peter Burllinggame, Jr., John Briggs, Richard Sarle, Jr., John 
Potter, William Westeott, Jr., Phillip Burllinggame, William Briggs, 
John Knight, Jr., John Burllinggame, Jr., Stukeley Westeott, Jeremiah 
Knight, Richard Knight, Stephen Burllinggame, William Roberts, David 
Robarts', Ephraim Robarts, Joshua Turner, Joshua Turner, Jr., Samuel 
Ralph, Joshua Burllinggame, Yv^'illiam Stone, Thomas Field, Richard 
Sarle, Jonathan Burllinggame, Edmund Burllinggame, William Randall, 
Jr., Joseph Waterman, Ephraim Congdon, Joseph Waterman, Jr., Be- 
noni Potter, Job Sheldon, Josiah Westeott, Jr., Charles Dyer, Thomas 
Westeott, John Clark, Richard Waterman, Jr., James Brov/n, William 
Field, Joseph Williams, John Hoyt, Nathaniel Waterman, Roger Burl- 
linggame, Martain Salsbery, Benjamin Westeott, Gideon Comstock, 
Hope Corps, John Corps, Joseph Stone, Josiah Thornton, Christopher 
Harris, John Stone, Joseph Lockwood, Samuel Westeott, Benjamin 
Westeott. 3d, Nicholas Sheldon, John AVheatton, William Carpenter, 3d, 
Edward Potter, Philip Robarts, David Tifft, Edward Sarle and John 
Pottei-, Jr. 



On June 12 the petition was granted by the House of Deputies, 
David Jencks and John Potter, Jr., being named to act with one ap- 
pointed by the upper House to draught the act of incorporation. The 
upper House read and concurred with the resolution of the lower and 
named Thomas Arnold to serve on the committee, and on the 14th the 
act of incorporation was submitted and adopted. The act read as fol- 
lows: 

"An act for dividing the tov/n of Providence and incorporating the 
southern part thereof into a township to be distinguished and 
known by the name of Cranston. 

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of this colony, and by the 
authority of the same it is enacted, that all the lands in the town of 
Providence lying to the southward of a line beginning at the head of 
the cove called and known by the name of Hawkins's cove; from thence 
a straight line to the bend of Pochasset river, a little to the northv/ard 
of Charles Dyer's, and so to continue up said river until it comes to the 
road that leads from the town of Providence to Plainfleld; and thence 
westerly up said road until it comes to the Seven Mile line, that is the 
dividing line between the town of Providence and Scituate; then south- 
erly with said Seven Mile line until it comes to the southwest corner of 
the township of Providence, where Providence and Scituate join in 
Warwick's north line; then easterly on the dividing line between Prov- 
idence and Warwick until it meets the salt water or river that leads up 
to Providence town; then bounding on the salt water or river^ as the 
same extends itself up stream, towards Providence town until it comes 
to the aforementioned bound, at Harwkins's Cove. 

"And it is further enacted that all the lands to the northv/est of the 
aforementioned line, from Hawkins's Cove, to the bent at Charles Dy- 
er's, and so up the river, to where Plainfleld road crosses said river; and 
all the lands to the northward of said Plainfield road, until it meet the 
aforesaid Seven Mile line, shall be and remain in the town of Provi- 
dence; and all the lands to the southward of the last mentioned lines, 
to be distinguished and known by the name of Cranston; and that the 
inhabitants of said Cranston, from time to time, have and enjoy the 
like benefits, liberties, privileges and immunities, with other towns in 
this colony, according to charter. 

"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the jus- 
tices of the peace living within the aforesaid town of Cranston, shall 
remain and continue in their aforesaid offices until the next general 
election; and that the first of the said justices of the peace grant forth 
his warrant to call the inhabitants of said Cranston together on Tues- 
day, the 25th day of this instant June, at some convenient place in said 
town of Cranston, to elect and appoint such town officers as they shall 
l.i.ave occasion for and the law directs; and to appoint the times and 
places of their town meetings and to choose and elect two deputies to 
represent them at the October session, and so on, as by the charter is 
directed. 



14 

"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that said 
town of Cranston shall send two grand and two petit jurors to every Su- 
perior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Jail Delivery, 
and two grand and two petit jurors to every inferior Court of Common 
Pieas and General sessions of the Peace held within the county of 
Providence. 

"And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from 
henceforward the town of Providence shall keep in repair the one-half 
of the aforementioned highway or road called Plainfield road from the 
place where the aforesaid Pochasset crosses the same, as aforesaid, un- 
til it comes to the aforementioned dividing line of Scituate and Provi- 
dence, and that the town of Cranston keep in repair the other half; and 
that the town of Providence begin at the aforementioned river where 
it crosses said road, and so measure one-half of the distance from said 
river up said road, which half Providence shall keep and maintain in 
repair, and the western half the town of Cranston shall keep and main- 
tain in repair for the future. 

"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the 
debts which are now due from the town of Providence (such as town 
debts) shall be first paid out of the interest money arising from the 
interest of the loan money taken by the inhabitants of the town of 
Providence out of the several banks; and that after the aforesaid town 
debts are paid, that then the interest of the aforesaid loan money shall 
go to the respective town where the lands are mortgaged; but in case 
there be not interest money enough to discharge the now debts of the 
town of Providence, that then the inhabitants of the town of Cranston 
shall raise and pay their equal lot by levying a rate on the inhabitants 
of said town of Cranston, and that the debts which are now due from 
the town of Providence shall be settled and paid in proportion as the 
last town rate was levied on the inhabitants. 

"And be it further enacted, that the poor persons who are now a 
town charge to the town of Providence shall be equally divided be- 
tween the towns of Providence and Cranston, according to the levy of 
the aforesaid rate. 

"And that Daniel Jenckes, Jonathan Randall and Philip Greene, 
Esqs., or the major part of them, be a committee to draw the aforesaid 
line from Hawkins's Cove to the bent of the Pochasset river aforesaid; 
and also to settle and adjust the debts now due from the town of Prov- 
idence and order what part Cranston shall pay of the same, and what 
part of the poor persons of the towns of Providence and Cranston shall 
take as their part; and the report of said committee, or any two of 
them, to be final when made to the General Assembly. 

"This Assembly do vote and resolve^ and it is voted and resolved 
that William Burton, Esq., shall be deemed and taken to be and act as 
the first justice in Cranston." 

The deed was accomplished, and the town of Cranston was born. 



15 

Tbe freemen lost no time in taking advantage of the right to individual 
existence conferred upon them by this act, and eleven days after the 
passage of the act of incorporation, on June 25, 1754, there was a town 
meeting "for electing town officers called by warrant and held in ye 
tov^^n of Cranston in the county of Providence, Colony of Rhode Island, 
* ^ " agreeable to an Act of ye General Assembly." No doubt every 
man present at this historic gathering of a century and a half ago felt 
a sharpened sense of his responsibilities as a citizen of the colony 
founded by Williams, and a new sense of the burden he had assumed 
as a citizen of a town whose future nobody could foresee. Hitherto 
the obstacles in the path of the community had been met and overcome 
with the combined wisdom of men trained and experienced in handling 
the affairs of a township; now the freemen living in the Pawtuxet Pur- 
chase must meet these difficulties alone — and must overcome. Defeat 
after the long battle for separate existence had been won would be in- 
tolerable. 

But there was too much work to be done at once to permit of many 
forebodings. The town machinery was to be set up and put into run- 
ning order without delay. John Potter was chosen moderator of the first 
town meeting, William Burton clerk (his individual, small and legible 
handwriting is still clear on the record books of the town, in spite of 
the years that have rolled by since the records were inscribed) Joseph 
Carpenter was elected town sergeant, and Capt. Clark town treas- 
urer. The first Town Council was constituted as follows: First Coun- 
cilman, John Barton; second Councilman, Zuriel Waterman; third 
Councilman, John Gorton; fourth Councilman, Jonathan Randall; fifth 
Councilman, Capt. William Stone; sixth Councilman, Benjamin Potter, 
Jr. It is worthy of notice that in all the succeeding years of the town, 
in spite of the enormous increase of the public business, but one has 
been added to the number of councilmen. The Council, however, had 
less of the town's business to transact than its successor of the present 
day, and som.e of its regular duties have been transferred to other de- 
partm.ents. A large part of every Council meeting for many years after 
the incorporation of the town was devoted to handling probate matters, 
which have since then been placed in the hands of a Probate Court con- 
stituted by statute. Instead of intrusting the decision of matters affect- 
ing the public welfare to its Council, the freemen of the town were in 
the habit of holding a town meeting several times a year, whenever 
There appeared any reasonable excuse. 

The town meeting was popular for more than the opportunity it of- 
fered of getting public affairs out of the way. There were no newspa- 
pers, and the scattered men were glad enough to get together and ex- 
change the gossip of their various neighborhoods. And the results were 
^ood, for in this manner was developed a strong local patriotism, as 
well as an increased interest in the questions concerning the well-being 
of the Colony. 



16 

Among the other officers chosen at this first meeting were: Survey- 
ors of the highway, Christopher Lippitt, Capt. Matthew Manchester, 
Siukely Westcott, Richard Knight, 3d, Henry Randall, Joseph Stone, 
Samuel Westcott, Jeremiah Williams, David Tifft and another, whose 
name the finger of time has erased from the records; overseers, John 
Clark, Elisha Baker and Nathaniel Williams; fence viewers, John Hoyt, 
Capt. Thomas Field and William Harris; rate makers (in other words, 
tax assessors), Mr. Benton, Capt. John Clark and Nathaniel Williams; 
rate gatherer, Charles Higenbotham; pound keeper, Joseph Randall; 
vendue master, Benjamin Potter, Jr.; ganger of casks, Joseph Roads; 
sealer of weights and measures, Thomas Fenner, Jr.; packer of pork 
and beef and corder of wood, Abraham Sheldon; judges of whether the 
estates of applicants for citizenship were sufllcient to qualitfy them 
agreeable to law, Stephen Randall, Jeremiah Field and Jonathan King. 
There were still other officials selected, from which it may be gathered 
that the infant town was determined to have enough to meet all emer- 
gencies. It was also decided at this meeting to hold meetings at stated 
times of the year for the election of town officers and delegates to the 
General Assembly. At another meeting held two months later, on Au- 
gust 27, Joshua Turner and Joseph Lockwood were elected grand jur- 
ors "to serve at ye Supreme Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and 
General Gaol Delivery to be held on ye second Tuesday of September 
next," and Martin Salisbury and Josiah Westcott were drawn to serve 
as petit jurors at the same time. 

By the following year the necessity appeared of having some meth- 
od of dealing with offenders against the peace and dignity of the town, 
and it was voted that Jonathan King build a pair of stocks in the rear 
of Caleb Arnold's house at the cost of the town. The tax assessors, 
Clark, Burton and Williams, presented their bill for levying taxes, and 
their account was approved and allowed. At the June meeting in 1755 
the list of freemen was increased by the addition of the names of Abra- 
ham Sheldon, Jr., Jonathan King, Jr., Joseph Randall, 3d, John Water- 
man and one or two others. From the report of the auditors of the 
town treasurer's account, showing that sixty pounds, fifteen shillings 
had been received, and the same paid out, it appeared that the revenue 
was no more than was necessary to meet expenses. The individual offi- 
cials were not allowed to suffer, however, and when it was found that 
John Burton was short twelve pounds and twelve shillings of enough to 
meet the tax money he should have had on hand, the shortage being due 
to the departure of certain persons who left no estates on which the 
town could levy, it was voted to reimburse him from the town funds, a 
simple method of squaring accounts. In 1756 a tax of seven shillings 
was levied for defraying the town debts, the money to be paid on or be- 
fore October 24. 

The town responded in the following year to a call for soldiers for 
service with the British army in expeditions against French possessions 











1. The Caleb Arnold Tavern. 2. Old Town House on Phenix Avenue. 3. Clerk's Office in Elmwood. 

4. Clerk's Office and Engine House, Cranston. 5. The Present Town House. 










®i 





The Caleb Arnold Tavern. 2. Old Town House on Phenix Avenue. 3. Clerk's Office in Elmwood. 

4. Clerk's Office and Engine House, Cranston. 5. The Present Town House. 



17 

to the north. Subsequent town meetings devoted their attention for 
several months to levying taxes, the financial problems not being read- 
ily straightened out. The need of more money grew apace, however, 
and at a special meeting on February 19, 1762, Jonathan Randall, the 
Town Treasurer, was ordered to hire six thousand pounds on the best 
terms he could get for six months, the debt then to be discharged by a 
levy on the inhabitants of the town. This was the first loan authorized 
by the town, as far as the records show. 

As indicative of the extent to which the freemen kept public af- 
fairs in their own hands rather than delegate their powers to the Town 
Coimcil appears a vote of June 7, 17G4, that Jeremiah Field receive four 
shillings from the town treasury to reimburse him for money expended 
in a dispute with the town of Warwick as to which should care for an 
indigent Indian child. The early citizens were not less charitable than 
those of the present day; they took care of their poor with generous 
hand, yet they were strictly just as to questions of liability, and there 
arose many a controversy between the colonial towns over which 
should care for one pauper or another. Toward those who had shared 
with them the dangers and discomforts of their outpost life the citizens 
were open-handed, and in the same year Samuel Ralph, Job Joy, John 
Briggs, Townsend Briggs and David Roberts were exempted from taxa- 
tion "for so long a time as they remain under low circumstances." 

The same reasons which had led to the separation of Cranston from 
Providence inspired in 1765 a movement for a division of the new town. 
The residents of Pawtuxet objected to traveling so long a distance as 
they were compelled to for attendance upon town meetings, and con- 
ceived the idea of another township, which should include the easterly 
portion of the town of Cranston and that part of Warwick included in 
the village of Pawtuxet. Presumably the proposed town was to be 
called Pawtuxet. But the idea never took material form^ for when a 
town meeting of Cranston voters on August 27 considered the Pawtuxet 
petition for a division of the town, the proposition was rejected by a 
majority of neai-ly 60. The town was growing in population, although 
slowly. A count of heads in the year after incorporation showed 1460 
inhabitants, which number had been increased in 1774 to 1861, not a 
large gain numerically, but at the rate of about 14 per cent, in twenty 
years. The roads were often heavy for driving, and it was not unnat- 
ural that the dwellers in Pawtuxet should object to the frequent long 
trips to the central part of the town to attend meetings. The continu- 
ance of the town in its original shape was, however, as much preferable 
to a division as one strong town is preferable to two weak ones, and 
the separatists accepted for the time the decision of their fellow towns- 
men. 

The custom of allowing domestic animals to run at large in the 
roads led to a petition that sheep be confined, but the voters decided 
in 1770 to permit the practice to continue. In the next two years the 



18 

custom developed into such a nuisance that a pound was ordered to be 
built. The town of Providence called on Cranston to help pay the ex- 
penses of copying some of the records of the old town, but Cranston 
could not see how it was to get any benefit, and declined to help in the 
work. A more serious item of business brought before a meeting in 
1772 was as to the method of dealing with the smallpox, which was 
spreading, not only in Cranston, but in all parts of Rhode Island Col- 
ony. A bill for a smallpox hospital v/as presented to the General As- 
sembly to which Cranston gave its indorsement with the provision that 
the institution be strictly under the care and direction of the General 
Assembly. The town also voted that the Judges of the Superior Court 
should not be allowed salaries, an action which, in spite of the wording 
of the records, should be considered only an expression of opinion on 
the part of the town, since the matter was in the hands of the General 
Assembly. A slight extension of power to the Town Council is notice- 
able in 1773, when that body was empowered to take money from the 
town treasury for indenturing poor children who could not earn their 
living. 

The shadow of the War of Independence was drawing over the 
colonies. No town was free from the fast gathering gloom. The wiser 
heads of the country were beginning to understand that a conflict was 
inevitable, and preparations were being made accordingly. On June 6, 
1774, Rhodes C. Lippitt and Gideon Comstock were directed to draw up 
some resolutions for the town concernins the distressed state of the 
Americans, meaning the citizens of Boston, whose port was that year 
closed to all trade by act of British Parliament. The destruction of 
the Gaspee in 1772 had called for no action by Cranston as a town, but 
conditions at Boston made active steps proper. The resolutions were 
presented at a meeting held five days later, the 11th, and were adopted. 
They read as follows: 

"Voted, that we have a fellow feeling with our brethren of the town 
of Boston and consider the late acts of the British Parliament of block- 
ing up the port utterly subversive of American liberty. 

"Voted, that we consider that attack not singularly but deeply af- 
fecting the property and interest of every colony on the continent. 

"Voted, that we will unite with the other towns in this colony in 
putting a stop to the trade of Great Britain and the West Indies in such 
reasonable measures as will put the landholders, merchants, tradesmen 
and common people upon a permanent and equitable footing. 

"Voted, that the representatives of this town be requested to use 
their influence at the next sessions of the General Assembly in such 
way and manner as shall be thought most effective for the security of 
the rights and privileges of America as aforesaid." 

These were bold, unequivocal words, which chimed with the utter- 
ances of many another colonial town at this hour. Rhode Island had 
committed one of the first open acts of defiance of His Majesty's forces. 



19 

and Cranston could not have been expected to be backward in assert- 
ing herself. Her spirit took a more practical form than resolutions 
when a couple of months later it was decided to render some relief to 
the beleaguered citizens of Boston, and at a meeting September 24, 
1774, Moderator Jonathan Randall, C. Lippitt, Zuriel Waterman, Caleb 
I'otter, William Field and John Burton, Jr., were appointed a commit- 
tee to collect donations for the relief of the poor of Boston, "now suf- 
fering in the glorious cause of Liberty." The committee was continued 
at subsequent meetings, a vendue being ordered of such commodities 
as could not readily be sent, and Peter Burlingame, Capt. Samuel Gor- 
ton and Peter Sprague being appointed a committee to invest the pro- 
ceeds in fat cattle to be delivered to the committee at Boston. The 
march of events toward open warfare was rapid from this time out. At 
a special meeting December 31. a committee was named to get from 
Providence all of the town of Cranston's proportion of small arms and 
other implements of war in accordance with a vote of the General As- 
sembly during that month. These arms were allotted among the three 
companies or train bands in the town. 

The spirit of resistance to British arrogance swiftly gained 
strength. On March 13, 1775, the freemen of the town met again to 
consider measures for the enforcement of their rights. Thej^ adopted 
a resolution which is worthy of being recorded with the other remon- 
strances of the time — a sturdy, uncompromising statement of the atti- 
tude of the town on the questions which then engrossed the attention 
of all. In its adoption the town placed itself in the hands and at the dis- 
posal of the Continental Congress. Blood had been shed; it was clear 
that war to a definite conclusion must be experienced. The freemen, 
actuated by the love of freedom and fair play which was their Anglo- 
Saxon birthright, expressed their sentiments in the following memora- 
ble words: 

"The principal matter that engaged the attention of this meeting 
is the unbounded stretch of power lately assumed by the British Parlia- 
ment of taxing the Americans without their consent; reflecting on 
which we resolve that the same is unconstitutional and a violation of 
the rights and privileges of America, and we as loyal and free people do 
utterly disavow their right of jurisdiction to impose such arbitrary, 
cruel and unrighteous measures on the colonies, and as men will rigor- 
ously oppose the same, and as strictly adhering to the association en- 
tered into by the Grand Continental Congress will in our opinion be the 
most effective means for obtaining a redress of grievances, we do vote, 
therefore, in compliance with the 11th article of said association. An- 
thony Aborn, Esq., Mr. Joseph Rhodes, Capt. William Field, Capt. John 
Pitcher, Capt. John Clark, Mr. Andrew Harris, Capt. Richard Sarle, 
John Burton, Jr., Esq., Capt. Israel Gorton, Jr., Christopher Lippitt, 
Esq., and Peter Burlingame, Esq., to be a committee for the said town of 
Cranston to act and do every matter and thing appertaining to them as 
a committee in inspection, according to the direction of Congress." 



20 

This vote followed shortly after the first Continental Congress had 
met and demanded the right to levy all taxes and make all laws except 
ing those relating to foreign commerce and the like, and Cranston was 
in line with the rest of the country in looking into its resources in an- 
ticipation of the coming final struggle. 

It was inevitable that the price of the necessities of life should ad- 
vance, so in the following year Thomas Potter and Job Manchester were 
appointed a committee to act with other town committees in regulating 
the prices of sundry commodities. The preparations for war went 
ahead steadily. Gideon Westcott was chosen captain, and Josiah 
Haines, lieutenant of an artillery company the town was ordered to 
raise; a list was drawn of persons who were obliged by law to have 
firearms, and were not able to purchase their own, and Peter Burlin- 
game was delegated to demand of the committee of safety the town's 
proportion of lead. One-fourth of the powder and lead in the posses- 
sions of company captains was made up into cartridges, each minute 
man was directed to fill his ammunition box and guns, and bayonets 
were inspected and put in working order. The sessions of the freemen 
at this time were devoted mainly to the business of getting ready for 
the conflict. Paper for cartridges was bought; captains of companies 
were directed to make up cartridges. Thirty guns were bought in Feb- 
ruary, 1776, and on the resignation of Westcott from the captaincy of 
the artillery company. Lieutenant Haines was advanced to the com- 
mand and Daniel Aborn was elected lieutenant. 

The spring and summer passed in such preparations and changes. 
There is no indication of hesitancy or fear; all the citizens of Cranston 
looked to the future with courage if not with confidence. In September 
a bounty of six pounds was offered for the enlistment of twenty-two 
men called to the defense of the state, each one who should furnish his 
own equipment to receive twenty shillings. Gideon Westcott, who had 
resigned the command of the artillery company, was chosen to enlist 
these men, and empowered to hire money to pay their bounties in the 
name of the town when the treasury should be exhausted. This was 
not a remote contingency. Cranston was far from being a wealthy town 
in those days, and it was clear that the war would entail severe hard- 
ships. Yet nobody hesitated. A test act of loyalty to the colonies 
bad been drawn. Cranston decreed that none of her citizens should re- 
ceive his portion of the salt belonging to the town unless he previously 
subscribed to the test. This salt was distributed in that year by the 
State, Cranston receiving two hundred and forty-four and seven- 
eighths bushels, to be given out at the rate of six shillings a bushel. 
A call for troops for the island of Rhode Island, the most exposed por- 
tion of the colony and during the war the greatest sufferer, led to the 
enlistment of twenty-one more men, each of whom received a bounty of 
six pounds. It was beginning to be seen that none of the actual fight- 
ing of the war was likely to take place in Cranston, although troops 



21 

often marched through or encamped within its borders, and the guns 
and other warlike property of the town were sold. The residents were 
commencing to suffer for the necessities of life, while at the same time 
they were willing to share their last bit of food with the soldiers. There 
was a touch of communism in the feelings of the inhabitants toward 
one another at this period, going to the length of demanding that the 
public good should be paramount to private gain, and when it was sus- 
pected that there were stored in hiding places in Cranston large stores 
of sugar, rum, coffee and other provisions needed for the support of the 
inhabitants and for the soldiers stationed in and marching through the 
town, Captain Samuel Tompkins, Caleb Potter and Ephraim Robarts 
were appointed a committee to make diligent search for such provisions 
in suspected places and seize as much as they judged was necessary for 
the support of the people and soldiers, paying the legal price for what 
they took. Another committee was named to see to it that soldiers' 
families did not lack for the necessaries of life. 

The freemen were not too busy with the war, however, to protest 
against an act of the General Assembly to pay the members thereof sal- 
aries without the consent of their constituents. The Cranston Deputies 
were instructed to work for the repeal of this act, which it was stated 
"is even the same with some of the oppressive acts which we are fight- 
ing against which hath cost much blood and treasure." The call for 
fighting men was constant, and entailed a perpetual drain on the town, 
both as to men and money. Even slaves were acceptable to the Conti- 
nental armies, and the town arranged that if any citizen had mulattoes, 
Indians or negroes which could be bought for not more than forty-four 
pounds, and these slaves were willing to enlist and could pass muster, 
a commitee should make the purchases, and such slaves should be set 
free for all time and be entitled to equal rations and clothing with their 
vv'hite brother in arms. Col. C. Lippitt was offered immunity from fur- 
ther expense in helping the town to raise troops provided his negro, 
"Prince," would enlist and could pass muster. As illustrating the dearth 
of food of the time appears the vote of the meeting held July 12, 1777, 
that the ten barrels of flour in the store of A. Aborn at Pawtuxet be 
sold at auction in twenty-five-pound lots to the inhabitants of the town 
only. 

But the privations of that period were only a foretaste of what the 
war was to bring the town. A town meeting on April 17, 1776, had re- 
pealed a previous vote exempting from taxation unimproved lands be- 
longing to residents of other towns, which indicated that the voters 
realized something of the stringency they were to experience more 
acutely in the following years. Nevertheless they shirked none of the 
duties which membership in a commonwealth imposed upon them. 
They voted that soldiers enlisted in the town should be accoutered from 
the town treasury, which even at that time was so nearly empty that 
in November of Independence year the town treasurer was ordered to 



22 

hire four hundred and twenty dollars to pay bounties to soldiers. At 
the same time a tax of one hundred and fifty pounds lawful money was 
ordered. During 1777 the lack of food was at times very trying. A spe- 
cial town meeting was held to consider getting a supply of salt. The 
demand for enlistments in the army had to be met constantly, and the 
supply of volunteers was running low. At the June meeting in 1778 a 
committee of ten was appointed, with instructions to use its best en- 
deavors to enlist the town's quota of troops, on the best terms it could 
make. At another meeting five days later, it was voted to borrow two 
thousand dollars to pay bounties, and on the tenth of the month the 
committee on enlistments reported that it had obtained only eighteen 
men, about half of the town's allotment, and it was continued. In the 
same month an additional fifteen hundred dollars was hired to pay 
bounties, and toward the end of the month the committee announced 
that it had obtained the full quota of thirty-five men. Town meetings 
v>'ere held at intervals of a few days, nearly all of them being for the 
purpose of considering financial problems. Another tax of fifteen hun- 
dred pounds was ordered in July, 1778, and in October a levy of three 
pounds was made on each poll. In June, 1779, a tax of six Hundred 
pounds was levied, with a poll tax of six shillings, accompanied by the 
merciful consideration that those who were unable to pay should be ex- 
empt. The freemen also voted to hire another two thousand dollars. 
In August of that year a tax of two thousand pounds was levied. In 
March, 1780, the screw was given another turn in the shape of a vote 
that nobody should be exempted by the tax assessors from paying poll 
taxes, the previous custom of the town, giving the assessors the power 
of exemption notwithstanding. In June of that year there came a call 
for twenty-four more men as the town's quota of six hundred and ten 
from Rhode Island for field service. The price of men had risen mate- 
rially since the last call. A committee appointed to enlist soldiers and 
hire six hundred silver dollars to give each man a bounty of fifty dol- 
lars, or fifteen pounds in bills, reported nearly a month later that it had 
been able to obtain only eleven men. In order to expedite the business 
of enlisting soldiers, the able-bodied males of the town — sixteen years 
old and upwards, were arranged in classes. Toward the end of the 
year William Field, Nehemiah Knight and Job Manchester were ap- 
pointed a committee to enlist any man upon any terms, and in January 
of 17S1 reported that they had failed to make a single enlistment, "to 
which said town," they remarked in their report, "for our said service 
is welcome." The same pressure for money was being experienced all 
over the State. The General Assembly called for rate bills in order to 
figure how it could get more money from Cranston, and the town clerk 
was ordered to copy the bills and deliver them, together with the esti- 
mate of a committee of five, to Gideon Comstock, to give to a committee 
of the General Assembly appointed to inquire into the amount of ratable 
property. Comstock was ordered at the same time to make a verbal 



23 

report on the many grievances under which Cranston lay respecting 
taxation. The tax collector was ordered to pay into the general treas- 
ury fifty pounds, five shillings, as part of the town's proportion of money 
to buy beef for the army, and a special tax was laid to make up the 
deficit. 

Another cause which combined with the expenses of war and the 
normal expenses of conducting the town's repairs to reduce the citizens 
to poverty was the necessity of accepting a quota of Continental cer- 
tificates issued by Congress, which depreciated in value almost from 
the time they were dropped from the press. The town, nevertheless, 
took them without immediate protest, exchanging lawful money there- 
for, but a year after the first allotment had been received a committee 
was appointed to attend a convention of delegates at East Greenwich for 
the consideration of measures for putting a stop to further depreciation 
of the value of scrip. 

Cranston decided to stand by Congress to the last on the paper 
money issue and in August, 1779, voluntary subscriptions were called for 
to take up the town's quota. Congress had issued twenty million dol- 
lars in paper money, Cranston's proportion of which was four thousand, 
five hundred and twenty-nine pounds, ten shillings and ten pence. Sub- 
scriptions not coming in readily, it was decided to allot this amount 
among the citizens as a tax. Continental Loan Office certificates paya- 
ble v/ith interest at the end of three years to be exchanged for hard 
money. This proposition, however, proved so unpopular that it was 
dropped, and a committee was appointed to solicit voluntary loana 
Eventually the v/hole quota of certificates was disposed of. 

During the early years of the Revolutionary War there was consid- 
erable suffering from smallpox, which at times spread with such rapid- 
ity as to engender a suspicion that physicians disseminated the disease 
to further their own selfish ends. Captain Edward Knight was given 
permission in January, 1778, to open his house an as inoculating hospi- 
tal, he having agreed to receive patients and provide firewood at an ex- 
pense of twelve shillings for each one, and Dr. Robert Wickes was en- 
gaged to attend these patients for a compensation of eight dollars each. 
It would appear that permision to turn one's house into a smallpox hos- 
pital was considered a desirable privilege, v/hich was denied to Edward 
Sarle in February, 1778, while Peter Howard in May was permitted to 
take in such of his neighbors as had the disorder. When in May John 
King was taken with smallpox, he was given the privilege of opening 
his house "for one class and no more." When smallpox patients v/ere 
unable to pay their own expenses, the town looked after them. 

In addition to meeting the constant demands of the state for men 
and money, Cranston in at least one case paid its soldiers in the field in 
addition to what they received from the government. Members of the 
alarm and militia companies drafted in 1778 to do service on the island 
of Rhode Island were given twenty-four cents a day. A somewhat sin- 



24 

galar case in connection witti a Cranston soldier arose a couple of 
years later. William Baker, a minor son of William Baker, was not al- 
lowed by his father to accept the town pay, nor would his father take it. 
The father was on the point of moving out of the town, and in order to 
straighten accounts the town treasurer was ordered to pay. his delin- 
quent taxes with the money due his son. 

Daniel Penner, Jr., was killed in action at Springfield, Jutie 23, 
17S0, leaving a wife and four children, the youngest less than a year 
old, and the town took on itself the task of seeing that the widow re- 
ceived her pension from the government. The motive for this action 
was not altogether unselfish, inasmuch as it appeared likely that unless 
the widow received a pension she and her children would become town 
charges. Public office was less desirable at this period of the town's 
history than it was ever considered either before or since. There are 
records of a large number of refusals to accept positions, even those so 
elevated as representative to the State House of Deputies. The pover- 
ty of the town led to a vote notto pay the expenses of Deputies, but this 
action was shortly afterward repealed, as was another decision about 
the same time that all business done in town meeting after sunset 
should be of no effect. In addition to meeting, as far as possible the 
financial demands of the town, the citizens were called upon to supply 
soldiers stationed within its borders with a certain amount of wood, a 
tax which eventually became so burdensome as to lead to a request to 
the General Assembly for a diminution of the quota. 

The end of the war found the town nearly bankrupt in property, but 
still rich in courage and spirit. The sentiment for State independence 
led to a strong protest against the proposal to give Congress power to 
levy imposts in line with the so-called "five percent act," when Crans- 
ton fell in line with the rest of the state in ordering its Deputies to urge 
that the proposition be opposed. A quaint tribute to the power of the 
press appears in the wording of a vote which sets forth that the propo- 
sition should "be treated according to a peace in the Providence Ga- 
zette of October 19, 1782." In the town treasury at the close of the 
war was one hundred and thirty-one pounds, which was exchanged for 
gold and silver money on the best terms obtainable. The town tried to 
take an accounting of its debts, in order to levy a tax wherewith to pay 
them, but found its books so badly kept as to make it difficult to tell 
how much it owed. In 1784 the proposition to erect a separate town- 
ship out of the territory lying east of the Pocasset river and a part of 
Warwick was advanced again by certain Pawtuxet voters. The petition 
to the General Assembly stated, as had that of June, 1765, that the town 
oi Cranston was very long, and the town of Warwick inconveniently 
situated for the voters of the northeastern part to participate in town 
affairs; that the Pawtuxet Purchase was formerly a town (a statement 
not borne out by facts), and was so mentioned in the royal charter; 
that the petitioners understood that the cessation of its corporate rights 




Jianicl t) 

Wo- 1 e r in a » 

Town ClerK 



J o Ji n J 



TOWN COUNCIL AND CLERK 



25 

was that there were few inhabitants, and it was difficult to travel over 
the Pawtuxet river, obstacles which had been removed by the growth of 
the village of Pawtuxet to upwards of one hundred freemen and the 
building of a bridge over the river, and that the people of Pawtuxet 
desired a revival of ancient privileges. This suggestion after its first 
defeat was revived again in 1771, when ninety-five votes were cast 
against it, and twelve for it, and in 1784 was killed once more by an ad- 
verse vote of the town of Cranston. 

It would be pleasant to record that the troubles of the people of the 
town ended with the close of the war, and that the years following were 
filled with constructive labor. But an evil genius was at work which 
did not permit an intermission from the financial perplexities from 
which the people of the state had suffered. 

Rhode Island, as well as the town, was heavily in debt, and money 
could be raised only by taxation of property owners, already taxed al- 
most to extinction. The only prosperous people were the mercantile 
class, who were the creditors of the farmers, and an easy way of dis- 
charging obligations suggested itself in the shape of an issue of paper 
money. Cranston was distinctively a farming town, and it was not 
strange that she fell in with the idea. On February 18, 1786, it was 
voted at a town meeting to instruct the Representatives to the General 
Assembly to favor the proposition which had already gained much 
headway in the state. In the State elections of the following May the 
paper money party was triumphant, with the result that the General 
Assembly authorized the establishment of a paper money bank of one 
hundred thousand pounds. The depreciation of the value of the State 
money followed its issue. An act was passed to compel its acceptance, 
which was followed by the closing of stores and general business stag- 
nation. The farmers, who had pledged their lands for paper money 
with a view to getting even with the tradesmen, refused to take their 
produce to the centres of population if they could receive therefor only 
paper money, and there was actual suffering from lack of food. A State 
convention was held at East Greenwich to devise means for enforcing 
the bank act, the Cranston delegates being Caleb Potter, Jacob Young 
and Anthony Aborn. This gathering voted to support the General As- 
sembly, and recommended penal laws to force the paper money. A 
county convention at Smithfield proposed that the State provide vessels 
and import goods on its own account, that produce, labor and lumber be 
received in payment of taxes, these commodities to be sold outside of 
tlie State for specie and goods, that interest certificates be received no 
longer in payment of duties, private importers to be compelled to pay 
them in money, with other equally brilliant plans. Cranston, to its 
credit, disapproved the action of this convention except as to stopping 
the issue of interest bearing certificates to the office of import, and as 
to establishing an excise. It recommended that the import duty be 
raised to five per cent. In October it went back on its vote of February 



26 

by expressing the opinion that the bill entitled "An act to stimulate and 
give efficiency to the paper bills emitted by the State in May last ap- 
pears unconstitutional and impolitic." The distress occasioned by a 
valueless currency became daily greater, until barter grew to be almost 
the only kind of trade. The meetings of the freemen of Cranston were 
given over to discussion of the situation. By 1787 paper money had de- 
preciated to a ratio of six dollars for one of specie. Owing to this 
Cranston, finding it impossible to support its poor according to the laws 
of the State, directed its auditors to settle accounts "upon principles of 
equity, having due regard to the value of paper money at the time when 
such accounts are exhibited," and drew up a petition to the Assembly 
against the paper money act. The General Assembly decided upon a 
course of repudiation by ordering bonds retired with paper, which sank 
in 1789 to a ratio of tweh^e to one. In October of that year, the General 
Assembly took its first step upward by recognizing the ratio as fifteen 
to one, and allowing debtors to discharge their liabilities in property at 
an appraised value in lieu of money. Thestruggle to get out of the slough 
into which the paper currency madness had cast the State was a long 
one, inflicting unnecessary hardships on an already overtaxed people, 
but was finally brought to a happy conclusion. 

On March 24, 1788, the question of adoption of the federal constitu- 
tion was laid before Cranston and the other Rhode Island towns for dis- 
position. Cranston voted against it„ one hundred and one nays and 
no votes for it. In the following December the Deputies to the Assembly 
were instructed to try to have a State convention held to reconsider the 
adoption of the constitution. A year later the tide of opinion had so 
changed that the deputies were told to use their influence to prevent any 
convention for that purpose. In the following year, however, the tov/n 
fell into line with the rest of the state in a tardy entrance into tbe 
Union. 

The town at this time was little larger, numerically, than it had 
been when just before the war a census had been taken. The count of 
1774 showed one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four residents. 
In 1776 this number had dropped to one thousand seven hundred and 
one, and at the close of the war there were but one thousand five hun- 
dred and eighty-nine people in the town. Many people left after the 
Revolution to take up their abode in New York State, then 
called "the Young West" and looked on as the land of great- 
est promise. There was a marked growth, however, in the following 
eight years, a census of 1790 showing one thousand eight hundred and 
seventy-seven, the largest population in the thirty-six years of the 
town's history. 



CHAPTER THREE. 

1790—1890. 



known elJewhere amon^Th' . T "^"^P^lent to a degree un- 

been gained by cons^Sf vf.L^T"''^''"' °'°"'*'"«^' ^'"»'' '='"1 
die had been LtZZsTafotZT''"'""'''^ """"-■"■' ""'■' ""<' 
the compact with shghter aLl, , " °° '"'"""■"'J' entered into 

'n ihJ .'°'f "' ^' ''°"'' ^^^ remembered, included thrdwelTers 
m the section of Providence now known as Elmwood, and tL figures 

r; scXir VsT °' ?; r^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^*^^ ^-^^^ °^^'^'^"- 

rcranttnn t; t/ '"' ' °' '^' westward setting tide, there were 
in Cranston at the opening of the nineteenth century only one thou- 

Tecadr ' ""' '"'''■'"" ''''''' ^ '^'^ °^ two'hundr^d in the 

Having concluded consideration of the weighty matters connected 
^vith the war, paper money and joining the Union, the freemen of the 
town turned their attention to the administration of internal affairs 
The highways were in need of repair, and the proposition was ad- 
vanced that a tax be levied on property holders for their betterment 
but when the vote was taken in 1790 a majority of six disposed of it' 
m the following year the general tax levy amounted to two hundred 
and fifty pounds, lawful money. The paper money issue was destined 
to vex the minds of the voters for a few years yet, and the Town Treas 
urer was instructed to receive from Tax Collector Israel Manchester 
paper money orders at the ratio of fifteen for one. The levy of 1792 
was for the total of four hundred pounds, polls being exempted by vote 
of the town meeting, and three pence per pound was allowed for col- 
lection. It appears that Simon Johnson was exempted that year from 



28 

the payment of a tax, no reason being given in the records, although it 
was probably because of his "low circumstances," which had been 
given as the reason for such exemption on previous occasions. Depu- 
ties to the General Assembly were that year allowed pay of four shill- 
ings, sixpence a day while in attendance upon the Assembly sessions. 
The tendency to refer to remote times as "the good old days" is 
not always backed up by facts, and the enactment of a strict rule for 
elections in 1793 suggests that the voters of the eighteenth century did 
not differ materially from those of the nineteenth and twentieth. It 
was ordered that persons balloting in election should put in their own 
ballot, and that the persons holding the hats should keep a strict watch 
to be snre that nobody put in more than one vote. The freemen were 
given to expressing their opinions in a turbulent manner, which led to 
the following entry in the records of April 16, 1794: 

"It has been observed in this town for several years past that our 
proceedings at town meetings are very irregular and generally attend- 
ed with clamor and confusion." 

For that reason five rules were adopted. They were that a suflB- 
cient number of seats be furnished for all the voters, that the freemen 
should take seats at the opening of meetings, that when anybody had 
anything to say he should rise from his seat and address the moder- 
ator, that there should be no interruption of speakers and that the 
Town Sergeant and other proper persons should receive the votes. An 
act had been passed some time previously that all business transacted 
after sunset should be held illegal, but this was soon repealed. It 
came up again at this time, and the freemen adopted the cheerful habit 
of rescinding it for the convenience of each session when it was found 
to interfere with the* disposal of business and then continuing it until 
in 1796 it was repealed for good. The meetings of that time were held 
in the tavern of Nehemiah Knight at Knightsville, on the site of which 
the present Town Hall stands. Mr. Knight was one of the strong men 
of his day. He served in the General Assembly and later was elected 
to Congress. 

Cranston was threatened with a serious money loss in 1795 when 
Pearse Salisbury, the tax collector, absconded with one hundred 
pounds of public money he had collected. The man's father, Mial 
Salisbury, in order to save his son from prosecution, paid one-half of 
the amount with costs, and later the town recovered part of the re- 
riainder. Inasmuch as the sum was a large fraction of the entire 
year's levy, the seriousness of the trouble may be imagined. Although 
a comparatively recent offshoot from Providence, Cranston was not so 
largely under the domination of the bigger town as to be hindered in 
independent action, as it showed when in 1796 it refused to send dele- 
gates to a convention called by Providence to consider estimates of the 
General Assembly. A month later, liowever, after some missionary 



29 

work had been done, Cranston reconsidered the matter and sent Job 
Manchester and Dr. Samuel Hudson to the convention. 

The lamentable condition of the highways continued to cause dis- 
satisfaction among those who used them until in June 5, 1798, senti- 
ment had been aroused to the extent of passing a vote to expend two 
thousand dollars on repairs. The magnitude of the sum caused even 
more dissatisfaction than had the sad condition of the roads, and an- 
other meeting of freemen was held eleven days later, when the appro- 
priation was cut in half. The town was at the time, and for many 
years before had been, divided into highway districts, each of which 
was supposed to take care of its own roads. It was the custom of the 
voters to turn out and fix the highways with their own hands, a prac- 
tice still prevailing in many parts of the country, not at all to the ad- 
vantage of the highways. The rate at which property owners worked 
out their taxes on the roads was seventy-five cents a day for an able- 
bodied man, the day being nine hours, with nine cents an hour for 
shorter time than a full working day. The town opposed an act com- 
pelling it and Johnston to make repairs on the Norwich turnpike, 
which formed a boundary between the two. This road was in the 
hands of one of the turnpike companies of the day, which collected 
tolls of travelers using it. 

William Warner. Nehemiah Knight, John R. Arnold, John Burton 
and Jonathan Sprague, Jr., were appointed a committee in 1799 to see 
about building a public house for town meetings, but it was a few 
years later when the first town house was built. Its erection came 
about through a clause in the deed by which the Six Principle Baptists 
became possessed of land on Phenix avenue for a church building, the 
deed stating that the house should always be available for town meet- 
ings. The church was built out of the proceeds of a lottery authorized 
by the General Assembly. The practice of permitting lotteries for the 
gain of semi-public or public corporations had been in vogue for a num- 
ber of years, and was high in favor about the opening of the ninetennth. 
century. After the erection of the meeting house, which went indif- 
ferently by that name and the appellation of town house, meetings of 
freemen were held therein for a great many years. The Six Principle 
Baptists eventually died out of the Knightsville district of Cranston, 
and their house passed into the hands of the Congregationalists, but 
the building is still open to the use of the freemen should they desire 
it. 

The care of the poor occupied a large share of attention at town 
meetings of this period and for a good many years thereafter. While 
they were willing to take care of paupers who fell properly to their 
charge, the freemen were watchful that the poor of other towns did not 
gain residence in Cranston and fall upon the town. It was the practice of 
the day to vendue the poor annually, the person who would board and 



30 

clothe them for the smallest sum being given the contract. Naturally 
the man v/ho undertook this work was desirous of making as much 
profit from it as he could, and it is likely that the paupers were never 
overfed. The size of the Town Council was variable, the number of 
members being one of the regular items of business at the annual June 
meeting. In 1799 it was voted that five men constitute this body. A 
gratifying interest in the cause of education was shown by the vote of 
that year to instruct deputies to favor a bill in the General Assembly 
for free schools. In 1800 Nehemiah Knight retired from the town clerk- 
&hip, the duties of which office he had filled for many years in a highly 
creditable manner. His fellow townsmen gave him a vote of thanks 
for his work and elected Jeremiah Knight, Jr., as his successor. The 
Town Council elected that year consisted of seven members. 

The question of jurisdiction over the bridge at Pawtuxet had never 
teen satisfactorily settled. Continual complaints of its unsafe condi- 
tion had been heard and passed unheeded until in 1S03 a committee 
was appointed to confer with a like committee of the town of War- 
wick to delimit the boundary line between the towns. Before this com- 
mittee could make a report the scandalous state of the bridge had led 
a Providence County grand jury to indict the town of Cranston for neg- 
lect. A committee was appointed to look to the town's defense against 
a criminal prosecution, and it was decided that if the matter could not 
be adjusted Arthur Green, a highway surveyor in this district in whicii 
the bridge lay, should be complained of and made the scapegoat for the 
town. Fortunately for Green, the difficulty was arranged, the town 
agreeing to repair one-half of the bridge, which was set apart as a sep- 
arate highway district, and ever since it has been understood that 
Cranston and Warwick should join in keeping the important structure 
in repair. 

The State had continued its existence since joining the Union un- 
dei the old charter granted by the King of England, as it was destined 
to continue for a number of years to come. There began to be talk, 
nevertheless, of a constitution such as the other States had, and in 
1806 Cranston Deputies were told to favor a convention for drawing up 
such a working system. Nothing came of the agitation. A new bridge 
over the Pawtuxet at Pawtuxet village was completed in 1310, and a 
committee was appointed the following year to work with Providence 
in marking the boundary between the towns and set up monuments. 
The war of 1812, although an unpopular measure in Rhode Island, was 
helped along by Cranston to the extent of a quota of militiamen, who 
v;ere allowed ten dollars a month from the town treasury while in ser- 
vice. The Baptist Meeting House and Town House was finished at this 
period, in time to sustain such severe injury from the memorable gale 
of September 23. 1815, that it was untenable for town meetings until 
extensive repairs had been completed. That economy was still the 
rule of the day is shown by an expression of opinion that members of 



31 

Congress should receive only six dollars a day for actual attendance 
In 1819 the road from the Providence-Knightsville highway (Cranston 
street) to the Pawtuxet highway (Broad street) was laid out and sur- 
veyed, and Park avenue came into existence. Another effort in the 
direction of free schools proved unavailing. 

A few statistics of the town at this period may not be lacking in 
interest. There had been a steady growth in population since 1800, 
the census of 1810 showing two thousand, one hundred and sixty-one' 
and that of 1820 two thousand two hundred and twenty-seven. It is 
probable that much of this growth was due to the increase of the num- 
ber of industries. Cotton manufacturing was experiencing a tremend- 
ous boom, and in 1820 there were in Cranston seven cotton factories, 
the largest containing one thousand, two hundred and twenty-four spin- 
dles and twelve water looms, another with nine hundred spindles, one 
with five hundred and fifty-four, one with five hundred, one v/ith three 
hundred and fifty, one with two hundred and eighty-eight and one with 
one hundred and ninety-two, nearly four thousand altogether. There 
were also three woolen factories, one gin distillery at Pawtuxet, six 
grain mills and seven stores. There were three hundred and twenty 
dwelling houses in Cranston, four religious societies, six schools, a 
bank and a postofiice. The rapid growth of Providence, with its con- 
sequent demands for food, had led many owners of farms in Cranston 
to turn their attention to raising garden produce. The Pocasset river 
had been bridged at three places. Three main highways led into the 
town, one, the Norwich turnpike, on the western border, the Knights- 
"ville road through the centre and the Pawtuxet road at the easterlj'' 
side, and authority had been given for the construction of a turnpike 
to Pawcatuck, later known as the New London "pike," although it had 
not yet been built. The town boasted about three hundred qualified 
electors, three companies of militia and one chartered military com- 
pany, and in addition to the educational advantages represented by 
its six schoolhouses there was a library at Searle's Corner, now Oak- 
lawn. The taxable property of the town amounted to $577,798. Finan- 
cial enterprise was embodied in the Cranston Bank at Knightsville, 
with a capital of $75,000. 

These data show that Cranston had completely shaken off the de- 
pression which marked the opening of the century, and was firmly es- 
tablished on a foundation of prosperity. The talk of a state constitu- 
tion being revived, George Burton and Jesse Howard were sent as the 
town's delegates to a convention. In 1825 Providence desired to annex 
a large portion of the eastern part of the to\\Ti, including Field's Point, 
where it was proposed to erect a hospital and establish quarantine 
grounds, but the idea appealed so little to Cranston that it refused 
even to appoint a committee to consider the matter. The act estab- 
lishing free schools went into effect in 1828, and the first school com- 
mittee, elected on June 2 of that year, included George Burton, Peleg 



32 

Clarke, Bates Harris, Gorton Arnold, Remington Arnold, Jr., Daniel P. 
Dyer, Benjamin Potter, Stephen Arnold, Richard Knight, Jr., William 
J^ippitt, William F. Waterman, George W. Tyler, Jesse Howard, Pardon 
Williams, James Aldrich, Peleg Aborn, Arthur M. Potter, Harding Hud- 
son, Henry Baker, John Foster and Sheldon Knight. The Representa- 
tives to the General Assembly were instructed to secure the passage 
of an act designed to prevent horses, neat cattle, sheep, swine and 
geese from running at large into the streets, but a few months later, 
public opinion proving to be opposed to such a radical change from an 
old custom, the vote was reversed. Two years afterward the town 
voted to favor an act along the same line, but with the provision that 
one cow for each family might have liberty in the highway. 

It was decided in 1831 that no appropriations should be made in 
town meetings thereafter unless they had been previously approved by 
a committee of the Town Council. The old custom of disposing of the 
poor at auction was done away with, a committee being appointed to 
contract for their care. Asiatic cholera appeared in Providence and 
the surrounding towns in 1832, and the Board of Health was instructed 
to take the proper measures. The sum of five hundred dollars was vot- 
ed for public school purposes in 1833, the freemen having previousl.v' 
voted down a suggestion that the town be empowered to levy a special 
tax for the school. James Aldrich and Amos Collins were sent as del- 
egates to a constitutional convention held in Providence in 1836. The 
constitution did not come before the people for adoption, however, un- 
til six years later, and it took the freemen of Cranston three days in 
March, 1842, to express their opinion as to its adoption or rejection. 
The result was two hundred and eighty-three ballots against the con- 
stitution and one hundred and fifty-six in favor of it. In November of 
that year, when the question was brought up again, one hundred and 
one votes were cast in its favor and only one against it, while there 
were fourteen in favor of confining the franchise to white people and 
sixty in opposition. 

The highway and bridge ordinances were amended in 1836, with a 
provision that thereafter these public properties should be kept in re- 
pair by an appropriation in money. The following year brought a 
warm local political campaign, in the course of which thirteen ballots 
were cast for second Representative to the Assembly without choice. 
The candidates were George Field, Henry King and Benjamin Hunt. 
The care of the town's poor, always a live subject for discussion, was 
debated again, this time on a suggestion that the town purchase a poor 
farm, and after this idea had been once rejected it was advanced again 
and carried. Welcome Fenner reported for the committee named to 
look into the plan. He informed the freemen that the Rebecca C. 
Jencks estate on the west side of the road to Searle's Comer could be 
bought for $2690, with about eight acres on the east side, which could 
be had for thirty-five dollars an acre. This property was accordingly 



■^^mw 



1* 


■ 

1 ', 




pn^ 



r 



, n. 



^"1 



$ 



33 

purchased, and the poor of the tOT/n were lodged there for a number 
of years. The Town Council was instructed to place guide posts at 
suitable corners in the town. The remuneration of members of the 
Town Council was in 1845 set at fifty cents for each member for every 
meeting attended, and meetings of the Council were appointed to be 
held on the last Saturday of every month. A year later, the fear hav- 
ing arisen that the Councilmen were not beins handsomely remuner- 
ated for their time and labor, the pay was set at one dollar for each 
member. The Coventry and Cranston Turnpike Company, which had 
maintained toll-gates on the road running into the two towns, went out 
of business in 1846, Cranston accepting as a public highway that part 
of the turnpike within its limits. The boundaries between Cranston 
and Providence and Johnston were carefully marked in 1847 by monu- 
ments of stone, many of which remain. There was some difficulty in 
locating Hawkin's Cove, which had been mentioned in the act of in- 
corporation as the starting point of the line, so great had been the 
changes in the neighborhood, but a satisfactory arrangement was 
eventually reached. 

Cranston was then, as it has been since, a license town, a vote on 
the subject in 1848 showing a majority of fifty-one in a total of one 
hundred and ninety-one votes in favor of saloons. A generous act of 
charity, which may have been suggested by selfish interests, was the 
gift in 1850 of one hundred dollars from the town treasury to William 
11. Manchester, who had lost his sight. It v/as represented that if he 
were provided with tuition at the Perkins Institution in Boston he 
would be able to learn a trade whereby he could earn his own living, 
and the town felt justified in thus insuring itself against having to care 
for him as a pauper. The tax rate of 1851 was made fifteen cents on 
the hundred dollars, which was increased in 1852 to twenty cents. 

The agencies of public transportation were still primitive. Stages 
ran through the town from Providence to various points. George Scott 
for many years drove a stage from the city to the Gorton Arnold stand 
near Searle's Corner, and in 1852 presented a bill against the town for 
about five hundred dollars for damages he claimed to have suffered to 
his vehicle because of the poor condition of the highways. His claim 
was dismissed. In the fifties the Hartford, Providence & Fishkill 
Railroad was put through, the second steam road line to cross the 
town, the Providence and Stonington road having been put into oper- 
ation in the late forties. A right of way was sold to the former line 
through the town farm. 

Although town meetings were held at the building on Phenix ave- 
nue, it was felt that Cranston had outgrown the practice of keeping 
records in the homes of the Town Clerks and in April, 1854, a commit- 
tee consisting of Almoran Harris. Caleb Congdon, Robert Knight, 2d, 
William V. Daboll and Daniel S. Congdon was appointed with full pow- 

3 



34 

ers, to purchase land and erect a fireproof building for the Town 
Clerk's use at a cost not to exceed twenty-five hundred dollars. There 
were indications that a fight was at hand over the location of the seat 
of government. The people in the eastern part of the town, who years 
before had sought a separation from Cranston in order that they might 
transact their public business more conveniently as a separate body, 
were still of the belief that their side of the town had failed to receive 
its full share of attention, and when the proposal of a Town Clerk's 
office was advanced they expressed with force their belief that 
Knightsville was not the place for it. As early as 1854, moreover, 
there were to be found a number of residents in the Elmwood district 
who favored annexation to the city of Providence, although a large 
majority of the voters opposed surrendering any territory and the plan 
was defeated when it came to a vote in November, 1854. The decision 
cf 1854 to build a town house not bearing fruit, a similar vote was tak- 
en at a meeting in April, 1855, when two thousand dollars was appro- 
priated. It was decided to build it in school district number four, a 
committee consisting of Ebenezer Kingman, Edward R. Mitchell, Wil- 
liam H. Taber, William A. Carpenter and Jesse B. Booth being ap- 
pointed to map out the details. Three hundred dollars additional was 
appropriated for sheds in connection with the house. 

The advocates of more recognition for the eastern end of the town 
gained enough strength to get a removal of town meetings from the old 
building on Phenix avenue to the Union Meeting House on Prairie 
avenue, and in 1855 the suggestion of a return to Knightsville for town 
meetings met with frigid defeat, it being decided that the town meet- 
ings should thereafter be held in the Prairie avenue building unless a 
town house were built on Prairie avenue. This vote adverse to Knights- 
ville was repeated at the April meeting in 1856, but before the meeting 
was adjourned the supporters of Knightsville gained enough strength 
to carry their point. The demands of the residents in the eastern part 
of Cranston were not unfair. The town had grown in population until 
its residents numbered four thousand, three hundred and eleven. 
Providence was a city of more than forty-tiiree thousand, and the call 
for homes from those who worked in the city had started the move- 
ment toward the big town to its west. These people voted in Crans- 
ton, and in order to cast their ballots they were obliged to make the 
long journey to the town house, wherever that might be. As it hap- 
pened, it had always been in or near Knightsville, from the first meet- 
ings in Caleb Arnold's tavern through the long years when the meet- 
ing house of the Six Principle Baptists was used. Knightsville was 
reasonably near, although west of, the geogiaphical centre of the town, 
was handy for the farmers in and around Fiskeville, reasonably so for 
Auburn, and was the centre of a good-sized local population, but it was 
extremely unhandy for the residents of Elmwood and Pawtuxet. 



35 

WtLen. the people from the west end had out-voted those from the 
east, it was suggested that two voting districts be erected. The plan 
was at first rejected, but later was adopted, and for a number of years 
there were two voting places, making it fairly easy for all to cast their 
ballots. The Elmwood residents obtained a concession in the shape of 
having the building for the Town Clerk and town records erected on 
Elmwood avenue; in 1858 they were magnanimously given permission 
to finish up the grounds around this public building at their own ex- 
pense. 

Cranston retained its rural atmosphere until a late day. The law 
permitting cattle to run at large in the streets, provided they were 
ov/ned by citizens and bore a strap with the owner's name thereon, was 
not repealed until 1856. Three thousand dollars was voted for the 
maintenance of the schools in that year, four thousand for highways 
in the following. The tax rate was still in the neighborhood of thirty 
cents on the dollar. The outbreak of the Civil War led to a suspension 
of local hostilities, while everybody turned their attention to the drama 
on a larger stage. Cranston did not fail to supply its full quota of 
fighting men; the inspiring example of the Sprague family gave an im- 
petus to patriotism. One dollar a week was voted to the wife of every 
volunteer and fifty cents to other dependants, limited to four dollars a 
week to a family. When the call of President Lincoln for three hun- 
■ dred thousand volunteers was sent out, a bounty of five hundred dol- 
lars to every volunteer was offered. The Town Council was put in 
charge of the business of enlisting men. Twenty-five dollars a month 
was voted from the public funds for everj'- man who answered the call 
of '62 for nine months' volunteers. A tax of fifty cents was imposed to 
pay the expense of contributions to soldiers' families. In 1863 the gen- 
eral tax levy amounted to one dollar on the hundred, four thousand dol- 
lars being voted that year to the support of the schools, which were 
not to be allowed to languish, despite the heavy expenses entailed by 
the war, and six thousand dollars for the maintenance of the high- 
ways. In 1864 the tax was but sixty cents, while in the closing year of 
the war it went again to one dollar. In the latter year the town joined 
with Warwick in building a bridge over the Pawtuxet river on what is 
called the Silver Hook road. 

The great growth of Providence led to a desire for territorial ex- 
pansion on the part of that city, the result of which was the annexa- 
tion in 1868 of a considerable area, including Elmwood, and extending 
to the water. This section formed the ninth ward of Providence. 
There were two subsequent annexations of small strips of land desired 
by the city for the extension of Roger Williams Park. In the annexed 
district was the Town Clerk's house built a dozen years previously. As 
a result of this division of territory the Town Council was instructed 
in 1868 to get a place in Spragueville for the Clerk's oflBce and the po- 
lice station, thus bringing the seat of government again to the west 



36 

side of the town. A little building in the rear of the Brick Store in 
Cranston village was fitted up for the clerk; the police station was lo- 
cated near by, and for some time town meetings v/ere held in the house 
ot the Cranston Print Works Steam Engine Company. In 1883, it was 
decided to join with Warwick in building a stone bridge of two arches 
over the Pawtuxet river in Pawtuxet village. The necessity of a mod- 
ern town house was impressing itself on the voters, and in 1885 a spe- 
cial committee consisting of Phineas A. Conley, Alonzo W. Stanley and 
James A. Budlong was given plenary powers to furnish the town with 
such a building, the total cost not to exceed ten thousand dollars. The 
committee selected a lot at the corner of Cranston street and Phenix 
avenue, on the site of the old Knight tavern which almost a century 
before had been the scene of many a town meeting, and the present 
Town House was built and occupied early in 1886. 



CHAPTER FOUR. 
THE SPRAGUES. 

The story of the Sprague family forms a large part of the history of 
modern Cranston. Wiliam Sprague, the first of the family in Cranston, 
was a thriving farmer in the west part of the town.The Pocasset river 
ran through a part of his farm, and he had a sawmill and a grist mill 
near where the Cranston Print Works now stand. One of his three sons 
was William Sprague, 2d, whose wife was a lineal descendant of Roger 
Williams, and bore him five children, two of whom were Amasa and 
William Sprague. As early as 1808 William Sprague 2d converted his 
grist mill into a small cotton mill where cotton yarn was carded and 
spuB, and thereby he became one of the earliest manufacturers in 
Rhode Island. He had greater distinction in that he was the first cal- 
ico printer in America, beginning with the goods known as "Indigo 
Blues." He took into partnership his sons Amasa and William, and 
erected mills in Cranston, Johnston and Natick. The demand for his 
calico was so great that he accumulated a large fortune. He was a 
man of strong physique, and despite his wealth retained the utmost 
simplicity of habits. His bluff heartiness and generosity are well il- 
lustrated by a little incident. Having driven his ox team into Provi- 
dence wth a load of ship lumber, he found some of the solid business 
men of that city discussing the straitened circumstances of Samuel 
Slater, the pioneer cotton manufacturer. After listening to the discus- 
sion for some time, he broke out in a tone of ill-concealed disgust: 
"Gentlemen, these expressions of sympathy are all well enough, but 
what Slater needs, if I understand it right, is cash. I sympathize with 
him S10,000 worth." He then drove on, and it is claimed that the 
money he advanced saved Mr. Slater from bankruptcy. 

William Sprague 2d has been styled the founder of the A. and W. 
Sprague Manufacturing company, by reason of his establishment of the 
industry of making cotton cloth early in the nineteenth century. He 
died in 1836, leaving a large property to his two sons, 
Amasa and William Sprague 3d. The latter was born in Crans- 
ston November 3, 1799, worked in his father's cotton mill and developed 
a genius for operating machinery. He became superintendent of the 
cotton mill at Natick. He served several terms in the State Legislature 
as representative from Warwick, was speaker of the House for three 
years, was elected to Congress in 1836, in 1838 was elected governor of 
Rhode Island, served again in the General Assembly, and in 1842 was 
elected to the United States Senate. After the assassination of his, 
brother Amasa in 1843, he resigned from the Senate and returned home. 



38 

where he settled up the business affairs of the firm of A. and W. 
Sprague, united with the heirs of his brother under the old firm name, 
and resumed the business with increased energy. New mills were es- 
tablished in the Pawtuxet valley. Mr. Sprague assisted in obtaining a 
charter and interesting stockholders sufficient to build the Hartford, 
ProTidence & Fishkill R. R., which he had so laid out as to pass near 
the Cranston Print Works, and the cotton mills belonging to the firm. 
Amasa Sprague, his brother, likewise gained a thorough knowledge 
of every branch of the cotton industry by laboring daily in his father's 
mill while he was a boy. He entered into partnership with William 
under the style of A. and W. Sprague for the manufacture of cotton 
goods and calico printing. Stores were run in connection with the 
works, where dry goods and groceries were sold to the operatives and 
general public. On December 31, 1843 Amasa Sprague was assas- 
sinated near his home in Cranston. His son, Amasa, was at that time 
fifteen years old. After the death of the latter's uncle in 1856, the estate 
was settled, and a new organization was formed under the name of A. 
and W. Sprague & Company. The members were Amasa, William and 
Byron Sprague, Almira and Mary Anna; Mrs. Sprague, widow of Wil- 
liam Sprague 3d, and her daughter. Amasa, William and Byron 
Sprague were the active members. Almost the first work undertaken 
was the completion of a large cotton mill at Baltic, Connecticut, which 
had been started by William Sprague 3d. When finished, it was filled 
with the finest and most modern machinery that could be produced. 
No firm in the country excelled the Spragues in the cleanliness of their 
works or the quality of their product, and no concern in all the world 
could compare with them in the quantity of print cloth manufactured. 
The output of the Sprague mills was greater than that of all the other 
factories in the United States combined. The property was enormous- 
ly increased during the war of the Rebellion, and through the succeed- 
ing years up to the troublous times of the panic of 1873, when there 
came a financial crash. The books of the firm for the year preceding 
that affair shov/ed a profit of twenty million dollars. The company 
was running nine mammoth mills capable of weaving eight hundred 
thousand yards of cloth and printing one million, four hundred thou- 
sand yards of calico every week. William had oversight of the manu- 
facturing business, while Amasa took charge of the calico printing 
establishment. The latter was also an enthusiastic breeder of fine 
horses, both for the turf and draft purposes. He established the 
Narragansett Trotting Park, was a member of the National Association 
for the Promotion of the Interest of the American Trotting Turf, and 
for some time served as its president. He had an interest in a trot- 
ting park and stock breeding farm in Kansas, owned the famous stal- 
lion Governor Sprague, the handsomest and fastest horse in his day, 
which was sold for twenty-five thousand dollars, and the horses Ethan 
Allen, Rhode Island and many others of lesser note. He represented 



39 

Cranston in the General Assembly in 1864 and 1865, and for several 
years was president of the Cranston Town Council. When the war 
broke out in 1861, his brother, Governor William Sprague, made him a 
member of his personal staff. Amasa displayed much energy and lib- 
erality in assisting the State to raise and equip troops, sapplying one 
hundred and fifty horses from his own stables for the batteries. He 
was the first president of the Union Railroad Company. 

Governor William Sprague, the elder, after the death of his brother 
Amasa purchased the interest of his niece, Mary A., in her father's es- 
tate, and after the death of the Governor, Almira Sprague sold her in- 
terest in the same estate to her brothers, William and Amasa, and in 
1862 Byron Sprague, the only son of the elder Governor William 
Sprague, sold to his cousins, William and Amasa, his entire interest in 
all the estates of A. & W. Sprague except the Quidnick property, so that 
in 1862 the entire estates of the firm of A. & W. Sprague other than the 
Quidnick estate had passed into the hands of Amasa and William 
Sprague except the portion held by Mary and Fanny Sprague, the wid- 
ows, and the share of the Hoyt children. 

In 1862 William and Amasa Sprague and Byron Sprague obtained 
charters for the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company and the 
Quidnick Company. These companies were not organized until 1SG5. 
Mary Sprague, the guardian of the Hoyt children, transferred the in- 
.terest of her wards in the Sprague property and received 1621 shares of 
stock in the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company at the appraised 
value of $402.50 per share, and nearly one-eleventh interest in the 
stock of the Quidnick Company, appraised at about $65,000. 

In 1859 William and Amasa Sprague had become partners v/ith 
Edwin Hoyt and others under the firm name of Hoyt, Sprague & Co. 
The firm was the selling agent in New York of the Spragues until its 
suspension in 1873. Hoyt, Sprague & Co. suspended in September, 1873, 
and A. & W. Sprague and the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company 
October 31, 1873. 

Immediately following the suspension the Spragues called a meeting 
of their creditors, which was held November 6, 1873, and the creditors 
were then informed by the representatives of the Spragues that they 
proposed to make a conveyance of all their estates, of every kind, to 
trustees to be chosen by the creditors, and that such conveyance should 
vest in such trustees perfect, absolute and complete control of the en- 
tire property. At the creditors' meeting Rufus Waterman, Amos D. 
Lockwood and George C. Nightingale were selected as trustees, and the 
A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company, at a special meeting of its 
stockholders held November 28, 1873, directed its treasurer to execute 
the conveyance to these gentlemen. 

On the 29th of November, 1873, Messrs Waterman, Lockwood and 
Nightingale declined to accept the trust unless the creditors, by some 
previous action on their part would protect them against personal 



40 

liability. On December 1 the Sprague corporation by vote authorized 
its Treasurer to execute a trust deed to Zechariah Chafee. This act 
was formally approved by a committee of the creditors December 1, 
1873, though the committee said that the selection of Mr. Chafee as 
trustee was made without their knowledge. Such was the inception of 
the Sprague trust mortgage, out of which grew multifarious litigation 
in both State and national courts. 

The Cranston Savings Bank and the Franklin Institution for Sav- 
ings, both of which from their beginning had been under the control 
of the Spragues, were declared insolvent, and were placed in the hands 
of receivers by decrees of the Supreme Court. The trust mortgage pur- 
ported to secure 16,500 notes of various sums made by the Spragues 
and representing a face value of ?14,000,000 payable in three years from 
January 1, 1874, with interest at 7 3-10 per cent, payable semi-annually. 
The property covered by the mortgage was estimated as of the value of 
about $20,000,000. Mr. Chafee entered upon the execution of his trust 
under peculiar circumstances. He was not familiar with cotton manu- 
facturing or calico printing. The trust mortgage provided for carrying 
on the entire business of the Spragues practically in the discretion of 
the trustee. Some creditors were dissatisfied, but the great majority 
prepared to comply with the conditions of the trust deed, one of which 
was an extension for three years of the entire indebtedness as repre- 
sented by the extension notes. 

Creditors who did not become parties to this mortgage were left 
out of its provisions and thus a plain way was open for the non-assent- 
ing creditors to attack the validity of the conveyance. The bankruptcy 
act of 1867 was in force and it was claimed that the trust mortgage was 
in direct conflict with the provisions of that act. However, it was con- 
fidently hoped that the four months within which under the bankrupt 
law the trust mortgage could be attacked would pass without an at- 
tempt to throw the estate into bankruptcy. But on the last day the 
National Bank of Commerce of Providence filed a petition in bank- 
ruptcy against the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company. The en- 
tire community was wildly excited. Great Indignation was felt against 
the directors of the bank and a special meeting of the stockholders was 
called to take action in the matter. Finally the bank agreed to with- 
draw its petition upon the condition that the A. & W. Sprague Manu- 
fccturing Company and the firm of A. & W. Sprague should execute to 
Mr. Chafee general assignments of all the estates described in the trust 
mortgage, in trust for the payment of the notes secured by that mort- 
gage. This was at once assented to by the corporation and the assign- 
ments were made April 7, 1874, and on the following day the petition 
in bankruptcy was withdrawn amid expressions of great joy from these 
who believed that the vast estate would be saved for the creditors, who 
would be paid in full. 

Among the earliest steps taken by the creditors to attack the trust 





n ^^ 



41 

mortgage was the action of the receiver of the Franklin Institution for 
Savings. The trustees of this bank in April, 1874, accepted the provi- 
sions of the trust mortgage and in July of that year received the six- 
months' interest on its extension notes. On August 11 the bank was de- 
clared Insolvent and a receiver was appointed. He repudiated the 
acts of the trustees in accepting the extension notes upon the ground 
that the trustees had no power to grant such extension, and that this 
power could be exercised only by the depositors. The first suits which 
indicated any intention on the part of non-assenting creditors to at- 
tack the Sprague conveyances were those brought by the National 
Union Bank of Boston and the National Bank of Commerce of New 
York. These were brought in the United States Circuit Court in 
November, 1874. In these suits nearly all the real estate of the 
Spragues in this State was attached. It was understood that the claim 
of the Union Bank was settled, and the other suit was ended by a de- 
cision upon technical questions. The National Bank of Commerce, 
however, at once commenced a new suit in the same court, again at- 
taching Sprague real estate, and at the November term, -1878, recov- 
ered judgment against the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company 
tor about $60,000 and levied an execution upon the real estate attached. 
Later it purchased the property at a marshal's sale for a nominal sum. 

Subsequently the bank brought suit against Mr. Chafee to recover 
possession of the land purchased, but pending the suit conveyed its 
interest in the land to James M. Kimball, Edward H. Robinson and 
Benjamin A. Jackson for $100,000 in trust for the holders of the Sprague 
extension notes. The receiver of the Franklin Institution for Savings 
commenced a suit in November, 1878, in which he attached all the real 
estate of the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company that had been 
previously attached in the suits of the Bank of Commerce. He recov- 
ered judgment for ?S26,912.78. Inasmuch as the bulk of the property 
attached on this suit had been sold under the Bank of Commerce exe- 
cution the receiver had little or nothing in this State on which to levy. 
He subsequently brought suit in Connecticut on the judgment recovered 
here, attaching the Baltic Mills, and a tangle of litigation followed. 

Further complications arose in 1877, when suits were commenced 
by the children of Edwin Hoyt against Mr. Chafee, the Spragues and 
the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company, the complainants claim- 
ing that Mary Sprague as guardian of the Hoyt children had no legal 
authority to convey their interests in the A. & W. Sprague estates and 
take in exchange stock in the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Com- 
pany and in the Quidnick Company, and that these children were en- 
titled, as heirs of William Sprague 3d, to one-half the property owned 
by him at his decease, with all the accumulations, and that the deed 
of trust to Mr. Chafee was wholly inoperative to convey any portion of 
their property. Some of these suits were carried to the United States 
Supreme Court, where they were heard and dismissed. In March, 1878, 



42 

creditors of the Spragues representing some four million dollars, 
brought suit to remove Mr. Chafee as trustee and assignee, alleging 
that he had paid the extension notes and had paid no interest thereon 
since December 31, 1875; that he had allowed the Spragues to remain in 
possession of large portions of the trust estate; that, being himself 
without experience in manufacturing, he had allowed William and 
Amasa Sprague to control principally that business; that he had ex- 
pended large sums in erecting new buildings and purchasing new 
machinery, had contracted large debts, had sold personal property at 
less than its value, had used the trust fund in purchasing Sprague 
notes for his own benefit, and otherwise had mismanaged the estate. 
When the case was called to a hearing counsel for Mr. Chafee and the 
Spragues argued that the judges of the Supreme Court were disquali- 
fied to sit in the trial by reason of the fact that they were either direct- 
ly or indirectly interested in some of the corporations. Thus the liti- 
gation was indefinitely postponed. 

An interesting decision was rendered by the Supreme Court of 
Maine in suits begun by the Fourth National Bank of New York and 
others at the maturity of the extension notes, which the complainants 
had accepted. Property was attached in Maine, and the claim- was 
made that the conveyances to Mr. Chafee were void under the laws of 
that State. Judgment was recovered and executions were levied upon 
the attached estate, whereupon Mr. Chafee filed his bill to remove the 
cloud upon his title caused by the attachment. After an elaborate 
hearing the Court held that the attaching creditors, having become 
parties to those conveyances and availed themselves of the benefits 
thereby secured to them, could not afterwards treat such conveyances 
as invalid. 

About the year 1879 opposition and disagreements were developed 
between the Spragues and Mr. Chafee. William Sprague was discharged 
from any further management of the business, and in 1880 Amasa 
Sprague was also relieved of employment by Mr. Chafee. Mrs. Mary A. 
Latham, a sister of William and Amasa Sprague residing in Groton, 
Conn., in December, 1880, being a creditor of the A. & W. Sprague Man- 
ufacturing Company, filed a bill in "United States Circuit Court in her 
own behalf and in behalf of Amasa, William, Fanny and Mary Sprague 
and the Quidnick Company and all creditors of the Spragues who 
might become parties thereto charging him with incompetency, mis- 
management and mal-administration of the trust estate in various 
forms and with using the trust funds for his own purposes, and pray- 
ing for his removal as trustee and assignee, for the appointment of a 
receiver of tlie trust estate and for an injunction. This cause was 
heard in May, 1881, before Judges Lowell and Colt upon an application 
for an injunction and the appointment of a receiver pending the suit. 
A decision was rendered refusing to appoint a receiver, but holding 
that Mr. Chaiee had no right to purchase Sprague notes. Various 



43 

suits were instituted early in the eighties by the Quidnick Company 
against Chafee, the Spragues and the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing 
Company. Counter suits were brought by the trustees against the Quid- 
nick Company and the Spragues until the complicated litigation became 
almost as confusing to the legal as to the lay mind. In their persistent 
attempts to secure the removal of Mr. Chafee as trustee and assignee 
the Spragues employed as their legal advisers the eminent attorneys, 
General Benjamin F. Butler and General Roger Pry®r. All their efforts 
were unavailing, however, to secure Mr. Chafee's removal and the feel- 
ing of the Spragues toward the trustee continued very bitter to the day 
of his death. 

Enormous expense was of course incurred in the multiplied legal 
battles fought in the courts for the purpose of retaining or acquiring 
title to the vast property included in the Sprague estate. That some 
of the creditors became weary of waiting and in some instances even 
forgot the existence of their claims before the final dividend was de- 
clared was not surprising. After the death of Zechariah Chafee, the 
trustee, in 1889, the Court appointed as his successor Cornelius S. 
Sweetland of Providence, who continued to administer the trust, dis- 
posed of the remaining property and declared a final dividend, which 
was paid to all the creditors to be found. Some of the extension notes 
are still outstanding, the holders never having presented them for pay- 
ment. 



CHAPTER FIVEJ 
MODERN CRANSTON. 

The past dozen years of Cranston's life may with equal propriety 
be called "the road building era" and "the home building era." In 1890 
and 1891 there arose apparently an almost general sentiment in favor 
of substituting first-class, modern roads for the "mud roads" which had 
served the tov/n hitherto. The first large appropriation of ?50,000 for 
this work was made for the widening and rebuilding of Broad street 
and a commission was named to see that the money was properly ex- 
pended. In 1892 the work was carried out, twenty-three houses being 
moved in furtherance of the desired end. Cranston street was the next 
highway to receive attention, a proposition to join Knightsville and 
Thornton by means of a fine highway, to be known as Larkin street, 
failing to meet the approval of the voters. Cranston street was wid- 
ened and straightened from the city line to a point beyond Knights- 
ville, whence the work was finally carried through to Oaklawn. Park 
avenue, Elmwood avenue, Pontiac avenue and other streets received 
similar treatment in subsequent years, until today Cranston can boast 
cf better streets than any town in Rhode Island. The work has been 
carried out largely vmder the direction of Phineas A. Conley, who at 
its commencement was a farmer in the western part of Cranston, 
v/here he had built a stretch of highway which called attention to his 
ability. The work has called for large expenditures of money, v/hich 
1 ave necessitated bonding the town heavily. 

There is no doubt that the excellent highways have been a potent 

» 
factor in the growth of population during the past few years, although 

with the expansion of the city of Providence it was inevitable that 
many people v.'ho work there should seek homes in the neighboring 
town. The result of annexation of the Elmwood district to Providence 
had been to diminish a population of nine thousand, one hundred and sev- 
enty-seven in 1865 to four thousand, ei'ght hundred and twenty-two in 
1870. Ten years later there were five thousand, nine hundred and 
forty persons residing in Cranston, which Avas increased to eight thou- 
sand and ninety-nine in the next decade. The years since then have 
formed a period of rapid growth, the census of 1895 shov,ring a total of 
10,575, and that of 1900 of 13,343, Cranston being the Iarr;est town in 
the State, with a single exception. A fair estimate of the present pop- 
ulation puts the number of inhrJ^itants at fifteen thousand. This rapid 
increase in population was accompanied by a demand for homes which 
lias !ecl 1"" an enornyjus amount of building. The territory betv.'eea 
the city line and Pawtuxet v/as built up and received the pleasant name 



45 

of Edgewood. Auburn and Eden Park, Arlington and Meshanticut Park 
are other localities of comparatively recent date as home sites, Arling- 
ton being the oldest. 

With the growth of population there came a desire on the part of 
a portion of the citizens for a change from the ancient town meeting 
custom, which was looked on as a cumbrous and unsafe way of hand- 
ling the town's finances. A form for a city charter was drawn up and 
voted on in June, 1895, but by a small majority the citizens rejected the 
proposal to become a city. The defeat of the charter was attributed to 
the registry voters, who feared they would be deprived in a city of 
some of the privileges they enjoyed in a town. 

The street railroads have extended with the expansion of popula- 
tion, to which also they have contributed. Previous to the incorpora- 
tion of the Union Railroad Company in 1865 omnibuses ran from the 
city to Pawtuxet, Elmwood and Cranston. The first street railroad 
track laid out in the town ran to Cranston village and Knightsville, nor 
was there any other line until electricity displaced horses, when rails 
v/ere laid to Auburn and Eden Park and to Pawtuxet village. The 
Knightsville line was extended to Oaklawn, and the Auburn branch 
Avas continued into the Pawtuxet Valley several years after the other 
roads were built. 

Cranston seems destined to be a home rather than a manufactur- 
ing town, yet her record along the latter line is not lacking in interest, 
and the property devoted today to manufacturing purposes represents 
many hundred thousands of dollars. In Colonial days the industries 
were those connected with supplyijng the present needs of the resi- 
dents, such as saw and grist mills. A deposit of iron ore, so soft that 
it could be worked on an open hearth, was found in the westerly end 
of the town, and "the ore bed" was opened in 1767. It furnished iron 
to a wide territory, people in need of the metal purchasing the ore, 
which they smelted themselves, and during the Revolution a number 
of cannon were cast at Hope furnaces from iron taken from "the ore 
bed," including, it is said, some used by Commodore Perry, a Rhode 
Island hero, in the famous battle of Lake Erie. In the course of time 
the hole from which the ore was taken became filled with water, and 
"the ore bed" has been deserted for many years. 

The fever for cotton manufacturing which took possession of the 
entire State in the early par* of the nineteenth century led to the erec- 
tion of several mills in Cranston, none of which survive. Among the 
places where cotton yarns were maaufactured were Mashapaug, Paw- 
tuxet, Bellefont and Cranston village. The Bellefont Manufacturing 
Company was organized by William and Christopher Rhodes about 
1810, and in 1815 the business was carried on by William Rhodes and 
Company, who made both cotton and woolen goods. The first broad- 
cloth made in America v/as turned out at this mill. In 1871 the site 
was taken by the Turkey Red Company, which was the first in the 



46 

country to make its peculiar kind of goods. Tlie buildings were finally 
burned. On the street now known as Park avenue, at the Cranston 
end of Roger Williams Park, a little factory village known as Elm- 
ville, grew up around a large brick cotton mill, which burned March 18, 
1876. 

The story of the Sprague ventures has been told in previous pages. 
The two most important monuments of their genius and industry re- 
maining in the town are the Cranston Print Works, where about four 
hundred hands are employed in making print cloth, and the Narragan- 
sett Driving Park, now owned by an association. The park was opened 
with a racing meeting July 31, 1867. Among prominent men present 
on that occasion were Commodore Vanderbilt. Robert Bonner and Je- 
rome of Jerome Park, The fourth annual fair of the New England 
Agricultural Society was held there in connection with that of the 
Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry in 
autumn of that year, and for a number of years the Rhode Island State 
fair was held on the grounds until lack of patronage led to its discon- 
tinuance. The charter of the Rhode Island Society for the Encourage- 
ment of Domestic Industry had been granted in October, 1820. It re- 
quired that the annual meeting be heldin Pawtuxet, and on the Warwick 
side of that village fairs were held for a number of years until it was dis- 
covered that the location was inconvenient, the organization had be- 
come demoralized, and the funds in the treasury, which had been 
raised by lottery, were sadly diminished. In 1856 the society held its 
fair at North Kingstown, and in this meeting is to be found the origin 
of the prosperous Washington County Agricultural Society. The fol- 
lowing year the fair was held in Providence. 

In 1820 the ledge on Cranston street in Arlington was attacked for 
building-stone, since which it has been worked intermittently and still 
furnishes a good quality of slate rock. In getting out the rock a de- 
posit of graphite was found, and a building was erected with the inten- 
tion of preparing a commercial article, but this business has been 
abandoned. The brewing industrj^ which has become an important 
one in Arlington, began with the erection of a brewery on the shore 
of Spectacle Pond by N. D. Kelly in 1859. This enterprise later passed 
into the hands of Germans, and more recently another larger brevv^ery 
was built nearer the city line, and is operated by the Narragansett 
Brewing Company. The Rhode Island Company furnishes employment 
to a large number of men who live in and near Arlington. The barn 
of the horse car company stood opposite the Cranston Print Works. 
When electricity was substituted as motive power, a barn was built on 
Cranston street in Arlington, which was succeeded by a large brick 
structure, in the neighborhood of which was built recently a large build- 
ing used as a repair shop by the Rhode Island Company. 

The Budlong farms at Eden Park, from which point they extend to 
other parts of the town, form one of the largest enterprises of the sort 



47 

in New England. The business was begun in 1850 by the grandfather 
of Frank L. Budlong, the present head of the operating company. It 
was expanded to large dimensions by James A. Budlong, who was for 
years president of the Cranstown Town Council, served in the General 
Assembly, and established an enviable record as a liberal, public- 
spirited man. A variety of garden crops is raised for the Providence, 
Boston and New York markets, giving employment to a big force of 
men and women. Roses and carnations are raised in immense hot- 
Louses, and in connection with the farm there are a pickling and a vin- 
egar factory. 

The only bank the town has boasted was the Cranston Bank at 
Knightsville, started in February, 1818, with a capital of $37,500. It 
proved a convenience for the farmers, and lived until the rise of the 
national bank system. 

In 1869 the State purchased a tract comprising 417.7 acres in the 
southerly part of the town for State farm purposes. The territory was 
increased by later purchases, the State prison, hospital and county jail 
were located there, and the State's interest today represents a very 
large investment. The city of Providence went to Cranston for its 
drinking water as a result of a vote in 1868 to adopt the scheme pro- 
posed for utilizing the Pawtuxet river as a source of supply. A central 
pumping station was built at Pettaconsett, and the city's investments 
in the town at present are valued at upwards of half a million dollars. 
To the absence of congested business districts and residence sec- 
tions is due as much as to anything the freedom from disastrous fires, 
for which the town has reason to feel grateful. Credit should also be 
given, however, to the efforts of the volunteer fire department in saving 
property. When the Sprague family was dominant in local affairs, 
there was at Cranston village a steam fire engine company designed 
principally to protect Sprague interests. A dozen or fourteen years ago 
a sentiment in favor of volunteer fire companies arose, and today there 
are five in the town, located at Arlington, Auburn, Fiskeville, Knights- 
ville and Pawtuxet. 

The first church in the territory comprising the township of Crans- 
ton was the Friends' meeting house built at Meshanticut, now Oaklawn, 
in 1729, ante-dating the incorporation of the town by a quarter of cen- 
tury. The religion of the Quakers had been Introduced into the colony 
of Rhode Island by George Fox, its apostle, who toward the last quar- 
ter of the seventeenth century visited New England, attended the 
Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, and is said to have held a 
Friends' meeting at Meshanticut while on his way to Narragansett. 
The doctrines preached by this denomination fell on fertile ground in 
the western part of Providence town, with the result that at the month- 
ly meeting of the East Greenv/ich Friends held November 21, 1705, the 
following entry was made in the records: 

"A proposal being made to this meeting by some Friends about 



48 

erecting a meeting once in the month at Mashanticut for worship, 
v/hich this meeting taking into consideration and inquiring of some of 
them that lives theie who seems glad of it. Having discoursed this 
matter at home amongst themselves already so that this meeting 
agrees unanim.ously to it, to keep the first First day in every month, and 
some Friend of the weekly meetings belonging to this monthly meet- 
ing is desired to attend it as often as they may find freedom, especially 
Greenwich and Providence. The place for the meeting is Roger Bur- 
lingame's house." 

Meetings were held according to this plan until 1711, when the 
time was changed to the third First day in every month. In the records 
of the monthly meeting at East Greenwich January 3, 1729, is this en- 
try: 

"Forasmuch as the Quarterly Meeting hath allowed the Friends at 
Moshantituck in Providence to erect, build and carry on a meeting 
house within their precincts, this meeting appoints Joseph Chase, John 
Potter and Elisha Baker to carry on the same, and that Silas Carpenter, 
John Potter, Joseph Chase, Philip Arnold and Elisha Baker take a deed 
of the land which may be used for that purpose." 

This record fixes the date of the erection of the meeting house at 
Oaklawn "which was for years the religious centre of a wide stretch of 
country. In the course of time most of those who were widely known 
as active and talented Friends were heard in the plain, barely fur- 
nished building, which stood alone within the memory of many living to- 
day, and stands now back of the Oaklawn Baptist Church. One of these 
preachers is worthy of mention because of a sad circumstance: Anna 
Jenkins, who preached at Oaklawn her last sermon, and with her 
daughter, was burned to death on November 19, 1849, in her house in 
Providence. It is said that she experienced at the time of her final 
appearance before the Friends of Cranston a premonition that she 
would speak no more in public. 

After more than a century and a quarter of fruitful labor in its 
chosen field, the Oaklawn society dwindled to such an extent that in 
1861 the remaining Friends imited with those of Coventry in their 
weekly meetings. The monthly meeting, however, continued to be held 
at Oaklawn until June 4, 1866, when there were so few of the society 
left that it was deemed wise to accept the offer of Lodowick Brayton 
of $250 for the meeting house, shed and part of the land. The condi- 
tion was that the purchaser was to move the meeting house to the lot 
of land granted him, which was done after a delay of several years, 
during whict occasional meetings of Friends were held in the old 
house. 

Mr. Brayton's object in purchasing the meeting house appeared 
when he gave it to the Searle's Corner Benevolent Society, which was 
organized November 5, 1866, for the purposes indicated by its name. 
The society raised funds wherewith the building was repaired, and lat- 



49 

er a Baptist church was organized. There had been no regular meet- 
ings of Baptists m that part of the town while the Friends continued to 
hold their regular gatherings, some of the Baptists being members of 
the church at Knightsville, a few going to Natick and some to Phenix. 
After the formation of a recognized Baptist society in 1877 steps 
were taken toward the erection of a new house of worship, which was 
dedicated July 17, 1879. In the rear of this comfortable and attractive 
building may be seen the old Quaker meeting house built in 1729. 

The second building erected for religious purposes in the town 
was the Pawtuxet Baptist Church. Peleg Arnold and Abraham Shel- 
don about 1764 donated a piece of land in Pawtuxet village for religious 
purposes, and the grant by the General Assembly in 1774 of permission 
to hold a lottery to raise three hundred pounds, lawful money, where- 
with to buy a lot and erect a parsonage would appear to indicate that 
there had been previous to that time a building used as a church. The 
directors of the lottery were Anthony Aborn and N. Rhodes of Cranston 
and Robert Rhodes and Benjamin Arnold of Warwick. 

Early in the nineteenth century a Methodist society built a church 
opposite the Cranston Print Works, where they met for a long time. 
More lately it has been occupied as an Episcopal church, under the 
name 'of St. Bartholomew's. The large number of Catholics in town 
led to the building of St. Ann's church near Cranston village. 

The early settlers of Cranston were for the most part men of small 
education. They were endowed with large practical sense, but of the 
learning to be gained from books they had little, and it was natural in 
consequence that they should have paid slight attention to the educa- 
tion of their own children beyond the point of reading and ciphering. 
That spelling was a very minor consideration with them is amply 
proved by the early town records; while the handwriting is usually 
beautifully legible, the orthography is open to much criticism. The ter- 
ritory included in the Pawtuxet purchase had been occupied for many 
years before the first school was opened therein, and that school, like 
others of its time, was a private business enterprise, there being then 
no town system. Among the town records is a copy of "Rules for the 
English School," dated 1789, which if it be authentic, as there are evi- 
dences that it is, indicates that at that period at least there was a 
chance for the children of the town to acquire the rudiments of an edu- 
cation. The rules were as follows: 

"Rule one— Every scholar must attend this school as early in the 
morning as he conveniently can, with his face and hands washed clean 
and hair combed. 

"Rule two — When they enter the school they must take their seats 
immediately and not remove therefrom without leave until the school 
session is closed. 

"Rule three— None of the scholars must talk together in school 
hours unless it be something concerning their learning. 



50 

"Rule four — No scholar raust make any noise in or about the school 
room before, between or after school hours, under any pretense what- 
ever. 

"Rule five — No scholar must enter or leave this school without 
making a bow, nor enter nor leave their own houses upon coming to or 
returning from school without making a bow. 

"Rule six — No scholar belonging to this school must pass a gentle- 
man or lady in the street when coming to or returning from school 
without making a respectful bow. 

"Rule seven — When any person may enter or leave this school who 
does not belong to it, every scholar must rise from his seat with a re- 
spectful bow. 

"Rule eight — When a scholar is spoken to he must rise from his 
seat to return an answer. 

"Rule nine — When any scholar speaks to any of his schoolmates 
he must call him by his given name. 

"Rule ten — ^All the scholars must strictly obey their parents' com- 
mands in every respect. 

"Rule eleven — None must cut the writing table or any of the bench- 
es on the pain of being punished with severity. 

"Rule twelve — Let there be no buying, selling nor exchanging 
among the scholars." 

All of which must have advanced the high cause of education ma- 
terially. The first organized movement on the part of the State to es- 
tablish a school system was when a bill was framed in 1799 for distrio- 
ution to the towns, whose opinion was desired. Cranston favored the 
establishment of a school organization. The proposed law was enact- 
ed, but met with such opposition that it was repealed in 1803, and 
while it was in force Cranston did not establish any schools under it. 
Private schools offered the only education of the day. An academy 
was established at Pawtuxet which lasted for a number of years. In 
1800 the General Assembly called on the towns of the State for infor- 
mation as to their public schools, but few had any to give. In 1S28 a 
free school law was established. Cranston had previous to that time 
mapped out eleven school districts, with as many houses, although 
school was not regularly kept in all of them. There were five other 
private schools. The new law worked out well, and from a report mads 
in 1832 it appears that there were eleven public schools served by male 
teachers, who were employed on an average of three and a half 
-months in the year. Five hundred and fifty scholars attended these 
schools. The town appropriation was five hundred dollars, or a little 
less than a dollar per pupil. Interest in education was on the increase, 
however, and in the next seven years the appropriation rose to eleven 
hundred and seven dollars and eighty-two cents. Yet the aggregate 
number of pupils attending school was only four hundred and seven in 
1839. 



51 

The growth of the school system from that time was gradual and 
healthy. There was an increase in the appreciation of the advantages 
of education which led to the acquirement of better facilities, the ad- 
ditional cost of which was met without grumbling. Statistics for 1876 
show that seven hundred and fifty-seven pupils were enrolled in the 
schools, which cost the town that year $10,840.30. New school build- 
ings of modern types were erected as demand arose, and the curricu- 
lum was enlarged. The expansion of the system is suggested by the 
expenditure on the schools in 1903, a total of §51,624.47. This year 
there will be added to the general appropriation of $49,100 an expendi- 
ture of $50,000 for the new high scliool building which the growth of 
school population has made necessary. 

The most memorable crime recorded in the annals of the town was 
the murder of Amasa Sprague, the brother of Senator William Sprague. 
This occurred on Sunday, December 31, 1843. Mr. Sprague Vv'as shoe 
and killed in mid-afternoon near his own house, within sight of many 
houses and beside a much-traveled path. The body was shockingly 
mutilated, and the gun with which the deed was done was found brok- 
en a hundred rods from where the corpse lay. Three brothers, Nicho- 
las S., John and William Gordon were arrested on suspicion of complic- 
ity, the first charged with being an accessory, the other two with hav- 
ing committed the murder. All three were natives of Ireland, Nicholas 
having been in the town several years, while John and William had 
been on this side of the v>rater only a few months. The motive of the 
crime was believed to be the opposition Mr. Sprague had offered to a 
liquor license grant to the Gordons. The trial began April 8, 1844, re- 
siilting in the acquittal of Nicholas and William Gordon, John Gordon 
being found guilty on wholly circumstantial evidence. He was hanged 
February 14, 1845. This was the last hanging which took place in this 
State. Not many years later the law prescribing execution in murder 
cases was repealed in part as a result of the sentiment aroused by the 
hanging of Gordon on circumstantial evidence. 

The police trials of the town were conducted until 1896 in justice 
courts. In that year a statute establishing judicial districts for the 
trial of criminal and civil cases went into effect, Cranston being placed 
in the Eighth Judicial District. Clarke H. Johnson of Foster was the 
first District Court judge, with Henry A. Palmer of Cranston as clerk. 
In 1903 Mr. Palmer succeeded Judge Johnson, and was in turn succeed- 
ed by Willis S. Knowles as clerk. The Town Council discontinued 
handling probate business after the enactment of a statute giving the 
power to appoint a Judge of Probate, and John Palmer was named for 
the place. 

The close of a century and a half of corporate existence finds 
Cranston strong and prosperous. The handful of settlers of 1638 had 
increased to one thousand, four hundred and sixty in the year follow- 
ing the incorporation. Probably none of those who signed the petition 



52 

for a division of the town of Providence in 1754 would have considered 
worthy of a thought a statement that one hundred and fifty years later 
the territory set aside for them, even though shorn of a large and pop- 
ulous slice, would support a population of fifteen thousand. The first 
tax levy of the town called for thirteen hundred pounds, lawful money; 
that of the past year showed a total tax on real and personal property 
of $13,451,353. 

The mutations which residents of the town have witnessed during 
its existence haVe been partially outlined in the preceding pages. It 
has been inevitable that many interesting subjects should have re- 
mained untouched. Not the least noteworthy of the events spoken of 
have been the peregrinations of the freemen's meetings. In the early 
days they were held in taverns, where the voters could enjoy a glass of 
New England rum as they discussed public business. The first were 
at the Caleb Arnold tavern, which there is reason to believe was the 
building now known as the Major Westcott house on Phenix avenue, 
an ancient, gambrel roofed edifice occupied today by Italian families. 
Next the town meetings were held for a number of years in the Nehe- 
miah Knight tavern, which stood on the site of th© present Town 
House, and the Jeremiah Williams tavern not far away. After the Six 
Principle Baptists' Meeting House on Phenix avenue was built, the 
freemen met there for a great many years. The desire of the residents 
of the eastern part of the town to have a meeting place more convenient 
for them led to the occupancy for a time of a meeting house on Prairie 
avenue, then within the town, and after the annexation of the Elmwood 
district to Providence the voters gathered in the engine house at the 
rear of the Brick Store in Cranston village. Most of the town meet- 
ings today are held in Pocasset Hall at Knightsville, while the Council 
meets in the Council chamber in the Town House. 

In the early days the voters kept public affairs strictly in their own 
hands, gathering every few v/eeks for the discussion of the town's busi- 
ness. The Council had the granting and revocation of licenses, the 
layout of highways, the drawing of jurors and the disposition of probate 
business, which engaged a large part of their attention. As the popu- 
lation grew, however, the difficulties of getting a good attendance at 
town meetings led in Cranston, as elsewhere, to turning over more and 
more business to the Council. This was accomplished by statutory en- 
actments extending the influence of town councils, until at present the 
Town Council is a remarkably powerful body, not alone in Cranston, 
but everywhere in Rhode Island. 



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